Remembrance: Before the Recall
by CitrusCyrus
Summary: A detached Angela Zeigler is called on a U.N. sanctioned mission days before the recall of Overwatch,where she looks back on what drove Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes apart and the role she played in the fall of the one family she ever really had.
1. The Rain

**Zürich, Germany.**

Angela Zeigler traced her hand over the past.  
The light rain that pattered at the windows of her uptown apartment had made her feel melancholy, if anything else.  
The glass of the frame had the faint traces of her fingerprints from the last time she wanted to feel something. She found her hand had always rested on her own youthful face, smiling in-between Reyes and Morrison. Two phantoms now.  
 _But I'm still here,_ she thought. Reyes never smiled, but he was then. She still felt his arm around her, and Morrison's around her waist.  
 _"Come on, take a picture with us,"_ she remembered pleading to Reyes who gave her a coy smile and feigned agitation.  
 _"I'll break that pretty little camera of yours with this ugly mug, Doc."  
"He's right you know," _Jack would fire back with a friendly jab.  
That had been almost 20 years ago, back when they were a family. Back when Angela would dine with her fellow men and women, laughing and smiling over the odd glass of wine and the friendly banter while Wilhelm would scoop them up into an unprompted hug, and Lena would playfully zip around.  
Winston would attempt to quell the chaos, always unable to.  
Anna would never say much to Angela, not when their eyes would cross over Jack.  
That was decades ago.

Now, Angela ate in her quiet apartment with her own company being the faint purring of her aging cat at her feet, it's white and orange fur fading through the years.  
This was one of those nights she would remember Overwatch.  
She would still go and help those in need of course, but her Valkyrie suit lacked the sheen and polish it once had- her wings were growing listless, and her halo was rusting.

In the living room, her furniture faced the cityscape around her, visible from her wall-high windows that led to a modest balcony where a teacup was now overflowing with the steady rainwater. Files and folders full of medical records replaced where photos and trinkets would be in anyone else's home.  
A computer sat in the corner of the living room, a channel always open just in case the right people needed to find her.  
Angela looked over to the clear glass display of her television mounted just above a small cabinet and thought twice about turning it on. Watching the devastation in Russia was too much, especially knowing she could do nothing about it. The TV blipped on anyway though, a phone call was coming in.  
Encrypted from the United Nations. Angela knew that meant she would need to find her passport and credentials.  
"Miss Zeigler?" The faceless man on the channel spoke, a soft voice with an accent she couldn't place.  
"Speaking." She replied, barley recognizing her own voice after her quiet afternoon.  
"We're sending you important information- an Anti Omnic group has begun an aggressive assault in the Middle East upon many Shambali shrines. The most recent was in a city square in _Hadiqat Hadia_ , Israel that left 20 dead and many more injured."  
Angela closed her eyes to take a breath.  
"When do you need me there?"  
"Yesterday, Angela. We don't know when the next incident could occur. You have a flight from the Kloten Airport tomorrow at noon."

The voice fell quiet, waiting for her questions. When the man on the other end of the line realized she had none, he spoke again:  
"Thank you. Report back to me with any questions."  
The line was cut, and Angela began to realize that as time went on, her ability to be shocked by anything had been taken away. Numbed. Her PDA blipped at her hip, likely the files being downloaded.

Night was falling, and the darkened sky was now ashen. Streaks of grey and black that were more calming to her now than they were foreboding. That's when she noticed it- the faint black smoke tracing across her balcony.  
 _Was something on fire? No. Surely not._ **  
**She stepped around her couch, her hardwood floors creaking gently as her smooth feet carried her over them was the only sound aside from the faint rumble of thunder. That's when she noticed the smoke was rising and falling, growing thicker.  
She stood inches away from the glass, eyes watching intently. Her hand placed against the cold surface to prop her up as she leaned in.  
Her reflection began to change, and where her smooth white features once stood out from the rainy city, two black eyes began to manifest in the center of a slender mask.

She jumped back as the smoke became a person, and the person became a monster.  
 _But if it's a monster…_ Angela couldn't bring herself to run or to fight. Instead she watched the figure just as it watched her. The rain soaking into the jet-black hood hoisted around it's mask as the full-bodied specter raised a clawed, armored hand to her glass.  
Something about it calmed her. The presence was familiar.  
She reached for the handle of the door to open it, but as fast as it had appeared, the creature was gone in a trail of the same black smoke.  
That's when it occurred to her she had seen that mask before.  
She _made_ that mask.


	2. The Party

**Overwatch Headquarters, Switzerland.**  
 **20 years ago.**

"Let it go, Jesse!" Jack Morrison laughed as he raised his bottle to Jesse's own in a cheers.  
"I don't know nothin' about lettin' it go there, Jack. You threw away my damn cigar case!" Jesse McCree's accent always came on more thick once he had a few drinks in him- and even Jack let himself have one tonight, because it was Halloween, and even he deserved to kick back every once in a while.  
"If Blackwatch would clean up the Brief Room after they were done, we wouldn't be having this conversation," Jack shook his head after taking a nice long pull from the cold bottle in his hands.  
"Just because Jack doesn't like the smell of cigars in his dropships, that's why you joined _Blackwatch_ huh?" Reyes asked, popping the cap of his own bottle with his teeth and spitting it to the floor at his boots.  
"Reyes, I told you about making-"  
"A mess? Jack, you're gonna' have a lot worse to clean up tonight if Reinhardt ordered that nasty German crap again." Gabriel Reyes, Jack's good friend and frequent partner, was never a fan of dark ales.  
"Shoot, I don't got a taste for that stuff neither, Gabriel. I drink American, and if I don't have an American beer, well hell, I ain't drinkin." Jesse was so matter'o'fact than Jack just had to chuckle at it.  
"And suppose Captain Amari brings her whiskey again, Jesse you'll just turn that down?" Jack asked.  
"Alright, alright partner, let's not put words in my mouth."  
Jesse was wearing a black fedora with a blue ribbon buckled around the width. His usual poncho was an embroidered cape that covered his mechanical arm that clacked anxiously at his knees.  
His mask hung at his neck, because Jesse thought _the damned thing was 'scratchy'._

" _Captain_ Amari," Reyes mocked Jack, pulling up a chair at the small tabled they had been sharing drinks at for the past hour.  
"I'm only being polite," Jack averted his gaze. Reyes would always comment that just mentioning Amari brought his face to a shade of red.  
The soldier brought a free hand to his thigh to adjust the tight leather one-piece he was wearing for their Halloween Party- a star spangled leather mess with an obnoxious cape that dangled at the back of his knees.  
"Ah, Jack. You gonna' sweep the ole lady off her feet tonight and take 'er for a spin on your chopper?"  
McRee and Reyes had a good laugh at that one, and even Jack had to join in. He'd never rode a bike in his life, and the thought of trying was as embarrassing as it was humorous.  
"What are you supposed to be Gabriel?" Jack Morrison asked to get the heat off of himself.  
"I reckon' he's supposed to be a…" Jesse paused, "Dammit, what are those? Maca-Rachi?"  
" _Mariachi_ , _Cabrón_ ," Reyes corrected him with a roll of his thin, dark eyes.  
"Woah now, I know that one."  
Mariachi he was. Jack was even jealous of his snow-white coat which covered the entirety of Gabriel's impressive 6'7 frame, embroidered with elaborate gold designs that were off-set by a attractive green vest he wore under the coat. Reyes' hat was on the counter table behind him, letting his shortly cropped black hair be completely visible which was a rare sight.  
"The Doc is making a mask for me actually, I probably need to find her before the doors open," Reyes began to adjust himself before finishing his beer and standing up to smooth his coat down his sides.  
"I'll go with you Gabriel, I need to get my moustache. I left it in my room, wouldn't you know?" Jack stood with him. Jesse shrugged and leaned back, propping his costume accurate black boots onto the table.  
"Y'all go right ahead, You know where to find me."

The party that night was being held in what was under normal circumstances their "press room" which was a huge part of their headquarters, located right in the center of the base.

It's high ceiling and ornate long windows made it aesthetically pleasing enough for conferences and other events, and an even better venue when Winston and Lena would decorate for their Holiday parties, and since there were 30 or 35 of the off-duty agents set to make an appearance tonight, spirits would be running high and a nice open room would be the best bet to avoid any…unwarranted accidents.  
Jack winced thinking about last year's incident when Torb and Reinhardt's "friendly arm wrestling" match broke 3 tables and almost crushed Genji who was showing off for the girls.  
"You know the decision for Strike Commander is coming up soon," Gabriel reminded him, adjusting the collar of his flowing coat as the two made their way into the east wing of the headquarters- the barracks.  
"So I hear." Jack didn't like to talk about work or promotions almost as much as he hated discussing the Omnics. It wasn't that he hated the subjects, it was just as his daddy used to remind him:  
 _Jack. There's two things you never talk 'bout if your wantin' to keep friends: Religion and Politics.  
_ "I'm sure they'll let a Boy Scout like you take it, they love you Jack. They all do." Gabriel said quietly.  
"I'm telling you Reyes, it's the goatee. You look like a super-villain," Jack turned to smile, nudging his friend playfully.  
Gabriel brought a gloved hand to smooth out the whiskers around his lips- a subconscious tick every time Jack would poke fun at it.  
"I started growin' this when I was in diapers and you don't have a single stray hair on that boyish face of yours. I don't know if I should be jealous or pity you," Reyes laughed.  
"Hey, the chicks dig it."  
"Oh is that so Jack? Or _one_ in particular?"

The barracks were laid out in a big square on the edge of the compound, with a courtyard in the middle where Jack would sit and enjoy the weather on the days where the Swiss air would be just right…but nothing would ever beat the cornfields from back home.  
Amari and Zeigler's rooms were just across from each other, which was convenient enough for Reyes and Morrison.  
A bold red square with a white cross in the middle signaled Zeigler's, and Jack could feel his own heart begin to beat in synch with the drop in his stomach. All the super-soldier projects in the world could never beat the butterflies.  
"Are you going to knock?" Reyes asked him, his dark eyebrow raised in a challenge.  
"She's the one taking care of your costume. You knock." Jack defied, crossing his arms.  
"Boys. Really?"  
Ana Amari's head poked from behind her own door, her lip bit to stop a laugh.  
"Ana it's not what it-" Reyes was cut short by Ana bringing a hand up and launching a plastic cup between the two of them, smacking loudly against Zeigler's doorway.  
Panicking, Jack darted for Ana's room and gently pushed her aside to close the door.  
"Jack!" Ana had a hoarse laugh, slapping at his arm.  
Morrison brought a finger up between the two of them, using his free hand to point towards the hallway.  
"Gabriel?" Zeigler's unmistakable accent was thick with surprise.  
Reyes mumbled words were lost in the distance.  
Ana was listening as well as Jack was, but her smile and the light in her eyes were focused on him, and then she finally took in what he was wearing, which made her giggling start back up again.  
"Nice tights, Captain Freedom."  
That's when Jack began to laugh. His finger was still between them, and he brought it to bop her nose. She recoiled with a bright-eyed grin.  
"You know I hate when you boop me." She pouted.

Jack didn't even care what Reyes and Zeigler were doing now as he made his way further into Amari's dorm. Her room, like the rest, was modestly sized. A large bed looked like an inviting pool of exotic colors, with paintings covering up her cool blue walls.  
On a bedside chair was a dark blue coat and a plastic mask, painted with a peculiar inverted triangle.  
"Is this what you're wearing, Ana?" Jack scoffed.  
"I didn't have time to think of anything clever, so I pulled some stuff together. I've always wanted to experiment with blacklight tape," She addressed the illuminated streaks of material at the inside tails of the coat.  
"Green, though? That's not you," Jack tsk'd.  
"What is? Blue?"  
"I've always been a fan."  
"It's those blue eyes of yours, you think just because you're a pretty boy that we all should wear your colors? That might work with Zeigler, not me Jack."  
The mood went still. Jack could sense the aggression that Ana was never good at hiding.  
"You should wear your hair like that more often." Jack switched the subject, which he could tell Ana noted but didn't pursue further, leaving it with a soft sigh before bringing her hands to her raven hair, done up in an elaborate bun.  
"It looks good on you Ana." He smiled.  
"Are you kids done in there?" Reyes voice intruded from outside. Ana blushed and brought her hand up to her mouth, giving Jack a small wave goodbye as he started for the door. Taking one last look at Ana, he swung the door open to come face to face with a smooth white mask with a pronounced brow, and an angular black smile from below the eyes to the chin.


	3. The Flight

**Somewhere Over Rome.**  
 **Present.**

Looking out the cabin windows in first class at the shapeless land beneath her, all Zeigler could see was the mask looking in from her window the night before.  
She hadn't slept. She couldn't.  
All she did was sit in her living room, and stare at the night. Staring at herself.  
Angela knew that was Reyes, she could feel him there. _But how?_  
"Excuse me?" The stewardess was at her side now, breaking her from thought. She had a sleek white uniform, looking more fitting in a hospital than it would be an aircraft.  
She brought up a stainless steel tray with a half full glass of bourbon, two ice cubes.  
"Ah," Angela reached for the glass and sat it down on the small table in front of her, "Thank you."  
The stewardess gave a small curtsey to her, but remained standing. Angela knew what was coming next.  
"Are you…?"  
"If that's who you want me to be. But please don't…"  
The woman picked up what Angela was meaning. She leaned over and whispered to her:  
 _"Thank you for everything you did."_ She was off again to the next passenger before Angela could speak again.  
 _Did._ That's what it was. Past tense. She brought the glass to her lips and took in the mature taste of her drink before biting her thumb, staring ahead at nothing in particular. Overwatch was in the past. It's something that men and women the age of that stewardess would grow up experiencing as just a collective memory of the consciousness of their people.  
They would open a tablet and bring up the years gone by just before they were born, and they would see Zeigler there standing proudly in her armor, wings spread, halo alight with life with the code-name 'Mercy' just above that angelic headdress. They could see Morrison, Amari, Winston, McCree…Reyes.

 _Where are they now?_ The child would ask, staring at these soldier of fortune, at these symbols of a brief love affair humanity had with heroism before the bitter split. Before the Blackwatch exposure, Talon….

 _Where are they now?_

No one had heard from Zhou in years, Jesse McCree was probably drinking and smoking his life away in some dusty bar in the American south, Winston…Oxton…Amari…  
Angela took another drink, realizing her bright memories tasted more bitter than liquor she had ordered.  
The television overhead flickered dully between various tourism spots- the one on was for Egypt, for something called _Helix Security International_. HSI.  
Zeigler had heard plenty about them from her U.N. briefings over the years. The clip showed the proud people of Egypt, smiling faces as they were shown against backdrops of a rebuilding country. In the sky above them was a metallic knight, floating proudly with a satisfied grin across her tan features.  
It gave way to a close up, which segued into an interview she couldn't hear- and she almost spat out her drink when the name was listed: _Fareeha Amari. Callsign: PHARAH.  
_ There was no doubt that was Ana's daughter…but Angela saw Jack's face on her.


	4. The Dance

**_Just wanted to say thanks to those of you reading! Before this gets any further, I wanted to clarify that I'm aware some of the characters and situations aren't exactly in sync with what little information we have in regards to a timeline for the lore for Overwatch- this has been a trouble for me too, but I'm doing the best I can.  
If you notice anything jarringly incorrect, please feel free to let me know in the comments._**

* * *

 ****

 **Overwatch HQ, Switzerland.  
Halloween. **

The party was going well enough, Jack figured, as he had just gotten through sharing a corny dance to some old, out-dated techno music that Winston had insisted be played to the laughs and jeers of those in attendance.  
"This is an amazing little party you all got, Jack," Gérard Lacroix spoke looking too dapper to even be there.  
"Not my party, you can think the monkey for this one," Jack nodded across the room to Winston who was twirling around in a dance with Mei-Ling who was wearing a long black dress with a bright red bow atop her shortly cut hair. The disco ball and strobe lights were exploding to the thundering beat of the music. Elaborate silhouettes around them were high on the energy of the still young night.  
"Where's Amélie?" Jack asked. He knew wherever Gérard was, his wife was always close behind to pull him by the ear or to whip him into shape. He might have been their Talon-Ops leader, but they all knew Amélie was the brains and wit behind the man.  
"Ah you know her, she's around her somewhere. Hopefully you don't run out of martinis- she loves to drink and she loves to dance."  
"And you love her." Jack smiled.  
"I'd die without her, Jack. I truly would. Tell me, where's a wife for you?" He stirred a drink lazily in his hand as he spoke, the slosh of the liquid like a punctuation mark to his words.  
"I don't really think that's in the cards for me." Jack picked at the fake moustache that irritated his upper lip.  
"What's not?" Behind him, he barely heard Ana through her mask.  
Gérard gave a knowing nod and excused himself, leaving his seat at one of the many unoccupied tables free for the masked, neon figure.  
"You changed colors," Jack leaned in to tell her over the music, noticing her blue.  
"I like the way it looks Jack, don't get a big head!" Ana spoke, lifting the mask up over her head.  
Jack never noticed how much he enjoyed looking at Ana. He never noticed the faint warmth that would place itself in his heart and his cheeks. The way her tattoo would curl upwards just below her wild eyes when she would smile.  
"Uhm, Hello? Excuse me?" Winston's booming voice broke in over the mic as he attempted to fiddle with the volume. Everyone stopped and laughed, some clapped, others cheered for him.  
"Uhm, yes hi! Everyone, I believe I'll…uh, we'll change the tempo a tad with a, uhm. Slower song," he tripped over his words, and Jack knew on that stage that Winston was looking at Lena- the two were inseparable.  
A few booed, and others replied with various 'awhs'. Even as grown men and women, they were all still 15 year old kids at the school dance.  
"You hear that Jack?" Ana nudged him with her foot.  
"I, I did. _Captain-_ " Jack caught himself with an embarrassed laugh.  
"Jack are you going to ask me to dance or to be excused from your morning drills?"  
"Yes, C…Ana." Jack stood up, offering his hand as the Euro-pop segued into the opening chords of _Unforgettable_ began to play.  
The floor cleared as he led Ana- or she led him- to the center. Jack could already feel the eyes on him. Zeigler and Reyes watched just out of the light.  
Ana led Jack's hand to her hip, and held his other out beside them as they began to sway. Ana broke quickly to reach for her mask, which Jack stopped.  
"Leave the mask off." He smiled.  
"Take yours off and I'll consider it."  
Jack almost didn't understand her before she began to giggle, puffing out her lip. The moustache.  
Next to them, a drunken Jesse McCree was twirling a red-faced Mei-Ling who was having the time of her life. Winston stood like a mountain with Lena's dainty hands in his, her grin as big as the moon.

Behind them, Reyes and Zeigler were hand-in-hand.

Ana caught Jack's eye, and he could feel her grip loosen.  
They didn't speak, but let their bodies keep up the conversation. Jack couldn't understand why Ana would cling onto he and Zeigler when it was Christmastime the year before where Reyes would take her under the holiday flowers above the doorway to this very hall. They all had history.  
"Jack." She stepped closer to him, resting her cheek at his chest where he placed his chin atop her head. She smelled like flowers and spice. The scent a home should have.  
"Do you dance with many women?" She asked him as Nat King Cole blanketed them with his sound.  
Jack's eyes met Zeigler's before she was twirled around where Reyes now caught his gaze. Both men breaking quickly.  
"I haven't slow danced since Reyes and I's Marine Corps ball. That was a long time ago, Ana."  
"Oh hush. You act like you're so old." She looked up at him now.  
Behind her, he saw Reyes lean closer to Zeigler- her usually pursued lips open now.  
Jack leaned in to kiss Amari. Her eyes widened with shock before she closed them just as fast, dropping his hand to hold the back of his blonde mane.  
She tasted more sweet than anything he had known.

The night would go on until the room was near vacant while the stragglers were busy knocking over bottles and glasses, playing various rounds of games.  
Mei-Ling was asleep at Jesse's shoulder, his fedora covering her eyes as he dozed off, cheek to cheek with her while Lena had toppled over, head In her arms, snoring at a small table in the corner with her spikey pink wig as a pillow.  
Morrison held Ana close to him as they continued to dance, even when the music had stopped.  
"I think I need to get some sleep," Ana had yawned, covering her mouth shyly.  
"It's only the rising sun out there, surely you can stay longer," Jack told her softly.  
"Jack, we're the only ones dancing. I think they're just watching us as the night's entertainment."  
Morrison looked around- Reyes was staring back at him. His expression didn't change till a smirk tugged at the corner of his dark lips before he nodded.  
"I don't care that they're watching us. I'm watching you."  
Ana kissed him again to the sound of drunken cheers.


	5. The Council

**United Nations Headquarters  
New York City, New York.  
November 1.  
20 Years Ago.**

"And when the crisis ends?" The man asked, his accent was American. Authoritative.  
UN Under-Secretary-General Gabrielle Adawe stood still before the committee. Her hair was tucked neatly behind her small ears and flowed to the back of her neck where an inherited green necklace was clasped.  
It was when she was in her 30's when she was tasked with forming the group that would not only lead the world from the darkness of the mechanical hell it found itself in, but bring it forward into a future that would be raised on the tails of these heroes…but her name would likely never be known aside from a plaque and a footnote.  
She was the one in charge, and she was now fighting for a different future…a future where Overwatch would be allowed to live.  
"When the crisis ends, our heroes will continue to make a difference. To uphold the peace. To-"  
"To stick their nose where it doesn't belong? We strive for peace in our country, and every time we think we have it, your agents blast another hundred Omnics down in the name of a better world."  
This caused a miniature uproar as several ethnic words were shouted from several different backgrounds at each other.  
The Omnics were a hot topic if ever there was one.  
"General Adawe," The next voice spoke. The woman strained her eyes to see, but the mass of voices were covered in the shadow while the spotlight shone on the stage she was speaking from.

"Overwatch needs a face. One for the public to trust, and as it stands Gabriel Reyes is not fit for Strike Command. "  
Adawe knew that was coming.  
"What are you suggesting?" She asked, already well aware that Morrison was their golden child.  
 _Of course he is,_ Adawe thought, _just look at him. Charismatic. Handsome. A Boy Scout in the truest sense.  
_ "Egypt's cries for help have fallen on deaf ears, and their cities are burning. Overwatch will combat the Omnic forces in the region, and stabilize it to preserve the Giza Plateau a point of…future interest."  
"Future interest?" _U.N. speak for classified.  
_ "The nature of that we cannot discuss. But we plan for this operation to be a very media friendly one."  
 _U.N. speak for good press._ Adawe understood.  
"I'll pass the promotion to Morrison…but Reyes won't be happy."  
"Reyes will be more than taken care of. We have better prospects for him." Another voice suggested.  
"What sort of prospects? Blackwatch?"  
 _The taboo word. Blackwatch. The thing we talk about that doesn't exist.  
_ "Angela Zeigler has all the technology she could need at her disposal for future proofing these soldiers. You yourself have commended her for the work she did on the _Shimada boy_."  
"They aren't all soldiers." Adawe detested the militarization of her Overwatch.  
"When the Omnics are all scraps on the ground- crumbs of a former feast of blood and iron- we will still have enemies. We will still have wars to fight." A deeper voice reminded Adawe.  
 _When the faceless Omnics are taken care of, our enemies will have faces again. Souls. Children. Families.  
_ When Gabrielle didn't reply, the U.N. took this as an understanding. The spotlight on her shut off and in an instant it was back on. The room collapsed around her, and now she stood in what would generously be called a closet. A tight space where the world was on her shoulders.

A knock at the door came soon after, and a tall man with a face that was as unmemorable as the rest of the goons who worked around her presented her with a thick manila envelope before giving a nod and shutting the door. Nothing said. Nothing at all.  
Gabrielle sat back down and emptied the folder onto the small table before her- documents that were half painted in black- long bars hiding what she needed to see and only preserving what they wanted her to see.  
Words like _Anubis. God Program. Reaper._  
Words like _ATHENA. Talon. Blackwatch._  
Adawe didn't know why , but she hated those words. She continued to thumb through blurry photos and hastily scribbled notes. Her stomach plummeting the more she read.  
They wanted to turn Overwatch into a task force of controllers, not a coalition for aide.  
They wanted her to approve an army of cybernetic mutants, not a family.  
They wanted all of this…  
Adawe knew if she didn't play ball then she'd be the next name blacked out by the pitch black ink that decorated the files like broken blinds over a once decadent window.


	6. The Tent

**Hadiqat Hadia, Israel.  
Present.**

The small village once home to some three thousand was now the product of destruction.  
Zeigler knew this image all too well and it didn't matter if It was the peaceful countryside of Northern Israel or the deserts of Mexico, she had seen what the Omnics and the humans were capable of.  
A Shambali shrine was in charred ruins, and she could see the bodies from the police barricade.  
U.N. workers and various other organizations were still removing the bodies that they could find.  
When Zeigler had showed up on the scene followed by a caravan of unmarked black vehicles, the world around here seemed to awe as she emerged with her Valkyrie suit- the wings lighting up and her Cadecus staff by her side, glowing with a heavenly aura.  
The cries and screams pleaded for her to bring back their loved ones- Omnic and human alike.  
She couldn't. She couldn't bring them back. Not anymore/  
"Miss Zeigler," A man with sad eyes and a heavy voice told her as she escorted her to ground zero spoke,  
"We've counted 25 of us, 30 of them. Someone…they waited for their nightly gathering, and they ignited it. Something. We just heard the blast and…" He trailed off.  
Zeigler nodded and made her way to the wounded tent where she had already made a head note of the ones that would die and the ones she could save.  
A small child had his clothes torn from her body and scratches to the side of her head- she was well past the point of crying, but she lit up at Angela's wings. She made her way to the little girl and touched her staff to the child's face and clicked her trigger to commence the bright stream of light. Almost immediately the wounds were vanishing, and the girl's eyes widened.  
" _'um. 'um_ " She whispered to Zeigler.  
"Mother? Where is your mother?" Angela held her hands up hoping she understood.  
The man from earlier was by her side again and raised a hand out of the corner of Angela's eye.  
She looked over to him to see him point to the other side of the tent at one of the bodies struggling for air.  
One of the ones she had noted wouldn't make it.  
 _"Heroes never die!"_ She could herself from a world away pleading through tears in the ruins of their old home.  
 _"Gabriel please! Jack!"_  
In the present, Zeigler put a gloved hand out for the child to hold. The pleads for her mother would follow her to sleep that night, and for the rest of her nights to come.

In time, the angel once known as Mercy had helped all she could. Her staff was nearly broken under the stress, and her suit was now smudged from the dirt and blood as body after body kept coming in- as hands held for her in either their final moments or their first breath of a new lease on life.  
For the Omnics, it was different. They never cried or shouted, they never seemed in pain even with their circuits hanging out from their metallic bodies…they would only wish her luck to heal their fellow men,  
To heal her people…  
They would wish luck and fortune when she too would one day pass into the Iris.  
She longed for the ability to thank them for their hopes, but the Iris would never see her.  
 _No. Not anymore._ _I'm far beyond that._


	7. The Battle

**Giza Plateu, Egypt.  
20 years ago.  
November 5.**

"Jack!" Ana yelled into his ear from his head-piece. Thinking on his feet, Jack spun around to see an enraged Bastion unit lumbering towards him- the machine gun on his arm whirring a fresh magazine into action.  
Morrison ducked and made a quick vault for the monstrosity and slid under it, firing his pulse rifle up into its joints with a satisfying flood of sparks and bolts dumping down around him as he jolted up, finishing it off with several hot rounds into the exposed reactor at the model's back.  
It gave one last cry and collapsed into a smoldering heap as Jack ejected a magazine before slamming one back in to reload.  
"Thanks Ana," He spoke as the glass visor over his eye registered the Bastion as decommissioned.  
The city strip was blown out and nearly destroyed, and the small stretch of road where he had just eliminated the Bastion was littered with broken machines and demolished cars which were innocently parked near where the cement curbs used to be intact.  
"Reyes here, Jesse and I are taking heavy fire. Two clicks west of you Jack-" Reyes voice cut out as gunfire replaced his words.  
Jack cranked his neck to the sky where Ana was keeping watch, her sniper rifle letting off a faint reflection of light.  
Overhead, several airships whirred by assaulting the enemies on the other side of the clutter of buildings where Reyes and McCree were pinned.  
"Rein?" Jack barked into his mic.

"I'm already on it!" The man shouted back through the piece. Almost immediately Jack looked ahead of him to see the large German rocketing along the street, to the heat of the battle.  
"Torbjörn! I need turrets set up along those rooftops by the time I get there, set up a choke point and we're going to lure the rest of these trash heaps into a throat," Jack yelled as he was already sprinting through the buildings to get to Reyes and McCree and even through the heavy walls he could hear Reinhardt's mighty hammer smashing through the robotic soldiers.  
By the time he'd made it, there was one Bastion standing, attempting to shift into its turret mode before Reyes sent two blasts of his twin shotguns into the glowing red eye of the monolith which caused it to spark and catch fire with one last screech of metal.  
"Jack, It's about time." McCree tilted his tattered hat to him.  
"Sorry, I was busy taking in the sights." Jack shrugged.  
"Not much to look at besides these _damn_ pests with the cameras." Reyes pointed into a balcony on the other side of the torn up road they were on where one of the U.N. media broadcasters was watching intently.  
"The way this mission was going you'd think it was a TV show," Ana commented through the mic.  
"I love the television!" Rein lifted up his helm to let his unsightly mane of white hair breathe.  
"Well smile, buddy. Yer on the camera." McCree gave a wink to the cameraman and a showboating twirl of his six-shooter.  
" _Incoming_!"  
A bright blast of blue and white light erupted feet away as Lena came zipping into life- her goggles nearly seared and her black hair fluffed up above her head.  
"My babies are ready!" Torb let Jack known eagerly. _Just in time._

"They're making their way to us, easily 30 or 40. I hope you lot are ready, because it's about ta' get right ugly!" Lena's excitement for the thrill of battle was always strange to Jack, but he had to respect it.  
"Lena, I need to you to go to all the media around us and advise them to stand as far back as they can- once Reinhardt's shield comes up and the firing starts…this is their final push for the city and they won't let us take it easily and-"  
"Got it!"  
Lena blipped away with another flash of light.  
"Dammit. Lena-" Jack turned around as if it would do any good.  
 _FWOOM!_ There was Lena, back again in the same spot, now behind him.  
"You say something' love?" She asked.  
Jack took a breath:  
"Make sure that If you find any other agents still evacuating civilians to watch out, we have to make sure everyone is one place. I won't stand for any casualties."  
Lena Oxton stood there eager as ever, waiting for more.  
"That's it Lena."  
She tilted her head and closed her eyes with a grin before flashing back off.  
"She's like bubblegum on a sugar rush, ain't she?" McCree asked as the whirring of the Bastions around both corners of the 'T' shaped block of road began to kick up in earshot.  
"My friends, into battle!" Reinhardt shouted, adjusting himself into a crouch and igniting his Barrier Field.  
Overhead, the chorus of Ana's rifle and Torb's turrets began a familiar concert.  
Jesse rolled to an open cardoor to use as cover and held his gun steady, waiting to see.  
Reyes checked his spare shells at his vest and gave a comical _tsk_.  
"You know what I hate most about all this, Jack?"  
"What's that?" Morrison asked as he knelt down to steady his pulse rifle while placing his biotic device at he and Reyes' feet.  
"Having to reload these tiresome things," Gabriel waved his dual shotguns around.  
The communication channels lit up as the firefight began, and for a moment Jack thought he would go deaf.  
Behind them, Zeigler flew down and began to pump her energy stream directly into Rein's shield which was showing signs of cracking.  
The Bastions were beginning to break through, and within minutes the battle was feet away.  
"I'm down!" Rein screamed as his barrier shattered around him before the brought up his hammer to brutally dispatch as many as he could.  
"Jack, cover me!" Reyes screamed as he sprinted towards the choke, pirouetting and leaping in a feat of shells and fire to be at Rein's side in the battle.  
Jack held his finger to the trigger as the sparks flew like sprays of blood, creating a light show that would be beautiful if it wasn't the only thing keeping he and his men from meeting their demise.  
"Jesse, distract them, I need to reload!" Jack barked into his mic.  
Reacting accordingly, McCree slid across the hood of the car he had been using for cover and launched two flashangs into the crowd- the grenades had been perfected and specifically designed on a light level which would be almost unnoticeable to human eyes, but dazing to the Omnic sensors.  
With that, McCree slammed the hammer on his revolver, taking out at least 3 of them with relative ease.  
Rein took a wide step back with Reyes still at his side, activating his recharged barrier once again. Above the commotion, Torb's turrets were taking fire but giving it back tenfold while Ana made quick work of the ones that were stupid enough to let their core points be exposed.  
It looked like they were winning to Jack…then the mayday call came in.  
Time seemed to stop as Jack snapped his head to the night sky as one of their birds stuttered and spiraled above from the Bastion fire. It was going to crash right on them.  
Rein let out a fearsome battle cry as he vaulted away from the dropship which was just wide enough to fit between the two strips of cityscape.  
Jack had to think fast, and there wasn't even time for that.  
Thumbing the launcher on his rifle he fired his trinity of rockets to the swarm of Bastions to give Reinhardt the space to raise his barrier to shield himself and Reyes.  
Jesse was out of room- and time. Mercy flew past Jack to grab the cowboy by his collar and, using her wings as a ram, shot through the ragged brick wall of the shop that was right next to them.  
Before Jack could shield himself, he was suddenly lost in time. Everything went black and then-

-His face hit the tar of a rooftop with a crack that shattered his visor.  
As it hit, he heard the triumphant eruption of their own dropship just below him. The ground shook, and the fire and light shot up, and Jack went right along with it, leaping over the wall of the roof with Lena just behind him. Falling into the flames.  
Jack hit the roof of the dropship with a clap and dug his hands into the ejection hatch just ahead of him, bullets still flying through the flames around himself and Lena.  
He looked back at her as she brandished her pulse pistols and fired back into the enemy.  
Jack finally managed to rip off the hatch and drop himself into the frying pan of the ship's small bay.  
Three agents and about five of the civilians were still strapped into their seats- some unconscious and the rest gasping for air and attempting to unbuckle themselves.  
 _No casualties,_ Jack allowed himself a small sigh of relief as he began to go from body to body and rip off the safety restraints.  
 _How am I getting out of here?_ He had to be quick. Be smart. The smoke was getting thick now, the heat was just as intense.  
The bay door was likely jammed against one of the buildings, that was out of the question.  
Lena dropped in just behind him, her glowing blue chest was flashing a shade of red and her outfit was in tatters- her lip busted and her goggles now discarded, but she still gave him a smile.  
"Lena, how many people can you blink out of here with?" Jack asked over the crackling of the heat and the moans from the wounded.  
"I…I don't know, but…"  
"But?" Jack didn't have time for that.  
"But ay, I won't stop long enough ta' think on it!" Lena stretched both hands out on the shoulders of two of the wounded and in a split second she was gone and back again.  
She moved forward and reached her hands out again- only this time she couldn't blink away. Blood fell from her lips, and her chest piece was now blinking violently at her.  
"Lena!" Jack screamed, catching her as she stumbled forward.  
"S'all good, love. Just a scratch 'er two," She put her arms against Jack and lifted herself up.  
 _6 left._ They began choking on the smoke as Jack ripped off his coat to cover two of the ones closest to him.  
At his side, Lena reached for a triangular device with a glowing center.  
"Bear with me here, Yank." She smirked, pressing the center down as she reached for Jack's spare biotic generator strapped to his leg.  
"Er'ry one, on us!" She yelled, back up with the rest of the survivors clinging to them. She threw the device at the opposite side of the bay aisle against the wall and Morrison ignited the biotic field as her own accelerator began to shine.  
Jack felt a searing heat, then a comforting warmth, and saw nothing but white light.


	8. ATLAS News Archive

ATLAS News Archive:  
November 6, 2046.  
 _ **Overwatch Heroes Save Hundreds in Giza**_ __  
 **Story by** : _Daniel Stillwell_  
Photo Credits Courtesy of ** _U.N. Press Committee_**

 _"It was incredible. We thought we were all goners, but they saved us. They did what no one could have done, and we thank the heavens we have them."_  
 _That's just one of the many comments received when the people of the Giza Plateu speak up about the events of November 5, which is being called by some as "laylatan mae almunqidh" or "The Night With Saviors"._  
 _On the edge of a relentless Omnic assault, the United Nation's guardian angel taskforce known worldwide as Overwatch beat back an army of Bastion units and when all seemed lost after a fiery crash in the middle of the battlefield- two heroes above all else emerged bloody and broken, but with 8 passengers safe and now making full recoveries._  
 _The heroes in question being identified as Jack Morrison- an Indiana native and decorated United States Marine- and Lena Oxton, a U.K. native and professional fighter pilot turned almost superhero._  
 _"This was easily their most hairy assignment," U.N. Official Gabrielle Adawe told ATLAS News._  
 _"The mission could have gone very different if even a single thing had gone wrong. Overwatch's agents are the brightest and best in the world, and [Morrison] proved his tactical prowess and decision making under such intense pressure could be counted on to save the lives of his fellow operatives as well as anyone else in harm's way."_  
 _A press release from the U.N. suggested Morrison will be promoted to Overwatch's first official Squad Commander._

 _At press time, no one within the organization could be reached for comment._  
 _While the operation was a huge success, an anonymous source within the Egyptian Government said that the City would likely never be fully rebuilt in their lifetime, suggesting that the damage done by both Overwatch and the Omnics was devastating._  
 _An unofficial death toll rang just under the hundred-person mark._  
 _The Overwatch group, which formed at the dawn of the Omnic Crisis, has ran several secret missions and operations in their lifetime of covert action, and have accumulated a vocal minority who have been calling for the organization to be monitored more closely._  
 _Another source who wished to remain anonymous, only calling themselves 'Zill', had this to say:_  
 _"[Overwatch] have done a great deal of good against the Omnic uprising, but what we don't hear or see is the damage they've done. People go missing in these war regions when Overwatch shows up, and they never come back. How many captives do the Omnics take? None. Overwatch have a halo hiding their horns."_  
 _ATLAS News will be here to bring you more information regarding Overwatch as it comes to us._  
 _Until then, subscribe to our social media outlets for mor_ _e._


	9. The Hotel

**Hadiqat Hadia, Israel.  
Present.**

The hotel they had set Angela Zeigler up in was just on the edge of the city, and so far away from the chaos that she felt guilty for staying there at all.  
She poured her second glass of bourbon, with her towel wrapped tightly around her body which was still steaming from the shower that she had sat in for so long she felt like she was swimming.  
Waiting for the memories to wash off.  
Her PDA lit up with two mail messages, one from ATLAS News' own Olympia Shaw and the other from Gabrielle Adawe…their handler at the U.N. back in the "glory days".  
 _She must be well into her 50's or 60's by now,_ Mercy thought as her finger hovered over the screen to open the message.  
 _This old. She's seen this much, and she still holds on to hope…still asks me about it all.  
_ And Shaw. Olympia Shaw.  
 _Interview request._ Zeigler double tapped the small profile photo of Shaw which lead to her ATLAS News profile page, and she found exactly what she expected to.  
Another hero-chaser. The _Overwatch Generation._ Same as the stewardess on the plane.  
Two green eyes behind boldly framed black glasses…eyes that were too bright and big for her profession looked back at Zeigler through her tablet with giant curls of red hair that fell to her shoulders.  
When Zeigler continued to scroll past various stories ranging from national weather emergencies to sports coverage, she found one that brought her teeth clenching so hard around the rim of her glass she almost shattered it.  
 _Fading Glory: On The Trail of Jack Morrison.  
_ Zeigler finished the rest of the drink, and stared at the words on the screen as if they were alive.


	10. The Promotion

**Overwatch H.Q.  
The Day of the Promotion.  
November 15.**

"You'd think I'd done walked into a wedding…or a funeral." Jesse McCree told Morrison, signaling his displeasure of the dress code as he tugged at the tie around his neck like a hangman would.  
Jack nodded to him quietly. It was supposed to be a good day for all of them.  
They were supposed to have drinks and to celebrate themselves as a team, and cheers to the future of Overwatch.  
But that's not how it went.  
Reyes had been distant towards him, hostile even. The vulnerability from that Halloween night was gone completely the moment Jack got that promotion to Commander.  
Even now, both of them standing in their United States Marine Corps Dress Blues, Reyes would hardly look at him.  
"Can't believe these things still fit!" Morrison joked as he approached his friend.  
"Yeah, you're tellin' me." Reyes sighed, his mouth attempting a smile but his eyes were still brooding under his heavy brow.  
"My friends!" Reinhardt came in from behind them, embracing Jesse, Jack, and Gabriel into a uncomfortably strong hug.  
"Congratulations, Jack! I'm proud to be serving under you." Reinhardt was always a laugh. A hulking behemoth of a man, his beard and hair trimmed and combed- a far cry from their usual state.  
Jack loved Wilhelm ever since he met him- he'd known what he had to go through, fighting through Germany. The horrors he'd seen and the men he'd lost, but Rein never let it show. Not to Jack anyway.

The hall they had danced in just weeks ago was filled with regal chairs, mighty bannisters hanging from the wall, and the stage had been polished and primped so much it hardly even looked the same.  
They group stood in the back, wallflowers at their own ceremony as the bureaucrats and leaders patted each other on the back for their good press from the Egypt mission.  
"Where is Ana and Zeigler? We must have the gang together, I have a special toast planned," Rein was growing anxious, more than any of them. His big heart was almost too worried about the others sometimes.  
Not to say Jack never worried. He did, oh he did. But he learned every soldier needed their space.  
Eyes locked dead ahead, he felt his fingers began to shake. Even through all his decorated ceremonies in the Marines and being inducted into Overwatch he had Reyes by his side; but today it felt like they weren't even in the same room together.  
Ana entered from behind them, Zeigler on her heels with Lena and Torb.  
Jack could feel Angela getting closer to him, her hands touched at his arm.  
"Good luck up there," She leaned in to whisper to him, "just remember to smile."  
Jack grunted.  
"You have to smile now, Jack. You're the face of Overwatch whether you want to be or not."  
Morrison turned to look at her- in heels she was still just below his nose, and her big eyes were bright staring up at his.  
"I think Reyes is the one you should be giving the encouraging pep talk to, Dr. Zeigler."  
"You never call me 'Doctor'." She sounded offended, and in truth Jack didn't know why he had called her that either.  
 _You only call me Dr. Zeigler when you're mad about something Jack, what is it?_ She used to ask him when they first met. Before he really got to know Ana.  
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ana making small talk with Rein. As beautiful as ever.

Angela left his side, and Jack made his way to Ana, giving her an unsure smile which she reciprocated.  
"Get ready, Commander." She emphasized the last word with a touch of flirtation, giving him a half-assed salute.  
Behind him, Torb was ready for the after party.  
"Where is the celebrations for later, ah? Where's the _spirits_? I've been making some er, _modifications_ to one of my babies. Think of it: a turret that fires pure, hearty vodka!"  
"Now hold on there, those things never miss but what's the odds I take some o' that right to the eye? My _lucky_ eye?" Jesse asked, intrigued.  
"None for me now, love. I'll stick with a good pint," Lena declined with a laugh.  
"Attention-"  
Ahead of them, at the front of the room, the woman Jack had met as General Adawe began to speak. Like clockwork, the audience began to seat themselves with the press upfront to catch the glory shots.  
Bulbs began to flash like a lightning storm already.  
"We're here today to honor the heroes of Overwatch. One in particular yes, but without his team none of this would have been possible."  
Jack held his hand to his side and motioned for them to fall behind him as they made their way up the middle aisle in the sea of uniforms.  
In the audience he could see Winston comically taking up two seats with a black tie hanging around the light grey fur of his neck with a white suit to cover his body. Next to him was Mei-ling giving a wide-eyed gaze at the heroes.  
 _My peers._ _Any one of them would be fit to lead. Any one of them could take this and not feel guilty for it.  
_ "Today, as U.N. Secretary Under General, I am awarding United States Marine Corps' Jack Elias Morrison with the honor of Strike Commander for Overwatch,"

The applause began. Morrison and the team were on stage, blinded by the cameras and the thunderous claps from the men and women who had no idea what his team even did.  
What they carried into battle.  
Adawe made her way to Jack, and placed a golden star at his breast. She stood several feet below him, and older woman but with hard eyes that seemed to reflect what Morrison was feeling.  
 _"Now dance for them."_ She whispered just loud enough for him to hear.  
Jack looked to Zeigler, to Ana. Angela flashed a smile, and Ana gave a more genuine one.  
Reyes stared dead ahead while Reinhardt beamed in delight. Jesse tugged at his collar before Lena swatted his arm down which earned a bout of laughter from those who saw.  
Morrison was at the stand now, and leaned in to the microphone.  
The crowd grew silent.  
"First of all, I would like to say thank you to the United Nations who helped bring myself and the hundreds of other like-minded men and women to come into Overwatch as a way to help his or her respective nations. Not to fight for a chance of glory, but to stand as a symbol of peace. I'm just here as a boy who grew up in the corn-fields of northern Illinois, and you thought it would be a good idea to give me a gun, a team, and a commendation for that," Jack paused as the audience returned canned laughter to him.  
He didn't like the speaking, but he knew how to play it. _To dance._  
"We wouldn't have made it. We…we wouldn't be standing here if it wasn't for each other. No one here, not in the several hundred, is useless. Everyone plays a role, and everyone is part of a team. I ask for those here from the press, and I ask of you world leaders…do not mention me in your stories and your examples of valor. If I'm listed or photographed…mention _my family_."  
Morrison bowed aside and raised his arms to those that shared the stage with him.  
The room erupted into a standing ovation.


	11. The Figure

_**Thank you everyone for the feedback, and for the views this story has been getting. Updates might be coming just a tad more slow in the coming days, as I'm slowly catching up to myself in getting chapters written and uploaded.  
Once again I encourage any feedback, positive or negative, so feel free to comment.  
**_

* * *

 **Hadiqat Hadia, Israel.  
Present.**

"Soldier 76," She read the words to herself.  
The blood in the veins that had dried up years ago suddenly flowed like a maddening river.  
"Jack?" She raised her hand to the screen in front of her. To the figure in the blurred, grainy photograph.  
A man, standing about 6 ft tall, with a thin crop of white hair flowing at the crest of his brow, just above a tactical visor and mask.  
On his torso was a blue and black jacked that looked like it had been stitched together in a rush.  
 _No. That couldn't be him.  
_ The editorial she read was overwhelmed with comments and criticisms at the foot of the page. Some said what she thought, others just sunk her heart further.  
 _That can't be Jack Morrison! Jack was a hero, not a vigilante! This site is a…  
I'd believe it! I never did like him, and the fact he's gone psycho and…._

 _Looks nothing like him, I call a hoax. You should delete this, and be ashamed of…  
_ Angela sat back into the armchair and lifted a trembling hand with her glass to her now cold lips.  
That's when she felt it. The same presence from her apartment just days ago. The warmth in the air slowly began to drain, and feet away from her the mist began to form.  
She lunged to the small desk in the room where she kept her side-arm- her Cadecus pistol.  
Raising it slowly, the weapon hummed with a soft noise as it read her fingerprint indicating that the safety was off.  
Then he appeared. The figure. The mask was the first thing that emerged from the purple-black smoke.

"Stop. Right there." She commanded. Her voice was authoritative despite the fact her heart felt like it was now buried in her stomach.  
The figure raised his palms up in front of him.  
"An...gela…" It spoke slowly, almost as if it was unsure of how to piece the name together.  
The voice was distorted with a wicked harshness to cover its owner.  
"What do you want? Why…why are you wearing that?" She asked, her firearm still raised to it.  
"They want you dead." He replied.  
"Who? Who wants me dead?"  
" _Talon_."  
The name alone was enough to send a chill down Zeigler's spine. She knew what they were capable of. She remembered Amélie…  
"Gabriel? Is that who you are?..." She spoke the name so softly that if she'd have said it any louder it would have registered as a whisper, the same way one would speak the name of the deceased at a cemetery.  
The figure seemed to react to that- It's mask tilting slightly, like the owl it resembled. Angela could have sworn the pitch black in the slits of the eyes held a small light of understanding.  
Beneath the disguise, she could hear breathing- heavy and painful.  
"Gabriel Reyes is dead," It finally bellowed through darkness, "there is only _Reaper_ now."


	12. The Tags

**Overwatch H.Q.**

 **The Day of the Promotion.**

"Go talk to him," Ana whispered to Jack as he loosened his collar with a sigh of relief.  
"I've tried Ana, it's not that easy. It's not like this is something I wanted; something that I took from him."  
Jack looked to Ana's soft face, a flash of remorse crossed it as quickly as it left.  
"I worry about him, Jack." She said, placing her hand on his at the isolated table they both sat at while the reception carried on around them. Jack could see Reyes sharing drinks with Zeigler and McCree, even from afar Morrison could read his bitterness.  
"You don't think I do?" Jack turned to her, withdrawing his hand.  
"You know that's not what I'm saying-" Her words were cut short as she cupped her mouth, wincing.  
"Ana?" Jack shot up to put his hand to her shoulder.  
"I'm fine Jack, I'm fine. Just a little sick- I'm going to blame that awful calamari at the buffet," She laughed it off as best she could.  
"You look pale, Ana. Here, I'll go get something to drink." Jack made his way to the refreshments where a young man was happily serving glasses of assorted liquors and sodas.  
"Commander Morrison!" The server beamed, "We have our top shelf supply for you sir!"  
"Thanks kid, I'll have a water…" He looked behind him to Ana who hunched herself over, tapping her fingers on the table in front of her.  
"…and get me a scotch."  
"Big night huh?" The server cheerfully asked, popping a fine square bottle and emptying a healthy amount in a small glass.  
"You could say that."  
"Thank you Jack," Ana downed the water like she was dying, "I think I'm going to go rest now."  
"Are you sure? Do you want me to…?"  
"Jack. No, this is your day. Don't leave for me," She stood up to push her chair in, finishing the last of her drink.  
He saw Zeigler and Reyes watching them now as he leaned in and kissed her cheek.  
Ana blushed with a weak smile and patted Jack at his arm before ducking around him to leave through one of the side doors as several more suits were coming in.  
That's when he made his way to his friends.  
"Well look'ee here. _Commander_ Morrison." Jesse saluted him mockingly before letting out a hoarse laugh.  
"McCree, is that some contraband in that flask?" Jack asked as the cowboy took a pull.  
To his surprise, he got a laugh from Gabriel.  
"He'd better watch it," His friend spoke, "We're starting our _Blackwatch_ training this week."  
Blackwatch had been nothing more than a joke to describe Reyes and his group, but the way he said it then gave it an air of uncomfortable certainty.  
"Is that right?" Jack asked him.  
"You better believe it. I just got the notice earlier."  
Jack drank the words at his tongue.  
"Where did Ana go?" Zeigler asked to interrupt the lack of speaking.  
"She wasn't feeling well, she retired a bit early," Morrison replied. He noticed the expression on Gabriel's face change in a way that made him feel uncomfortable…but he didn't dare explore why.  
"Jack, could you get a girl a drink?" Angela asked, stepping towards him.  
Her features were red, her eyes were already large with spirits.  
"Careful doctor, or you'll be taking an early night too." Jack replied with conviction.  
"Aren't we allowed to celebrate?" Reyes spoke for her. Confrontation in his voice.  
Jack stared him down. Unsure of what next to say, but careful to choose his words.  
"Oh we're allowed. In fact, that's an order." Jack put on his best smile which got a laugh from the group.  
"That's one I'll gladly take," Reyes' frown began to reluctantly crack and for the first time that day, Jack felt somewhat at peace.

The rest of the evening went swimmingly for Morrison, and he assumed for his Overwatch family.  
The dull nature of classical background music, muffled laughter, and the clanking of wine glasses shared over men and women in suits and uniforms soon gave way to a more relaxed afternoon just as the first few flakes of winter began to drift down from the lead-colored skies above their headquarters.  
The limousines and personal jets all began to leave, much to the satisfaction of those on base who didn't wish to deal with putting on a "picture face" for the rest of the night while the ATLAS News and U.N. Media team snapped shots and rolled the cameras for everyone who walked by.  
The members began to file out and go their separate ways- to kiss in the great hallways or to swap stories in the lounge, or maybe even to go outside and breathe in the crisp air from the world around them.  
Jack, Zeigler, and Reyes had their place- and it was _their place_ \- ever since they had joined.  
A spacious balcony on the top floor of the central building, just above the press hall, in the back of their cafeteria. It was closed obviously, but Jack's new privileges got him some generous leeway with keycard access.  
"It reminds me of home," Zeigler sighed as she traced a pale finger around the rim of her glass, still bubbling from the champagne as she gazed at the mountain range in the distance- it's snowcapped peaks tracing along the clouds which were pregnant with winter weather.  
"Wish I could say the same," said Reyes.  
"Oh come on Gabriel, this doesn't resemble southern California to you at all?" Jack smiled.  
"I'd ask you the same, but I already know Indiana is nothing but one blob of cornfields and barns."  
Jack laughed at that.  
"Have you two seen the states since you've been here?" Angela asked, a somber curiosity in her voice.  
Morrison glanced down at his own glass, his breath trailing out like a thin smoke at his lips.  
He hadn't seen home. Not since the Crisis started.  
"Last I saw of home was when I waved by to my mom and dad, hoppin' on that bus on Lincoln Street to head off to California."  
"Twentynine Palms." Gabriel acknowledged.  
"Oorah," Jack sighed, now unable to get the homesick feeling from his mind.  
"And that's where my boys met," Angela looked to both of them, "and love was born."  
"Hell," Reyes took a sip and sat his drink down to pull a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket,  
"I hated ol' Jack when I first met him." He clicked his lighter and took a drag.  
Jack was never one for smoking, and it was technically against the policy at the HQ…but those rules never really applied to Reyes and especially not to Jesse McCree.  
"Oh you whine-bag. I was green, I didn't mean to spill that tray on you in the mess hall," Jack smiled to him as Reyes gave a comical eye-roll back with a _uh-huh._  
"When did the…?" Zeigler wanted to say it, but she was scared for whatever reason. Morrison couldn't blame her.  
At the time, the _soldier enhancement_ program was a taboo: a controversial action from the United States to give the Omnics hell by genetically modifying their own to a state of godliness.  
Off the chart reflexes, focus, agility. _You name it._  
"The project. It was just under a year into our deployment." Gabriel said.

Angela was wide-eyed. Even with her incredible skills in the field of medicine and augmentation she acted like Morrison and Reyes were larger than life experiments.  
"You still got your tag, Reyes?" Jack asked, leaning over the table to tap Gabriel.  
"Sure do." Gabriel reached into his coat, his cigarette still dangling at his lips, and snapped off his chain to place it down on the glass surface.

 _ **REYES.**_ _  
_ _ **Gabriel D; O Pos**_ _  
_ _ **534 12 1922**_ _  
_ _ **USMC; L**_ _  
_ _ **CATHOLIC.**_ _  
_ _ **Sold. 76  
**_ _  
_"Sold…Soldier 76?" Angela asked through her squinted eyes as she read the tag.  
"That was me," Reyes sighed with one last drag before flicking the butt over the balcony,  
"Soldier 76."  
"What were you, Jack?" She looked up to ask Morrison.  
"Soldier 77. I went in right after Gabriel, here. He drew the short straw."  
Gabriel had a good laugh at that,  
"Literally, Doc. We drew straws."  
"Oh, hey that reminds me, we need a picture!" Angela stood up, reaching for her digital camera as Reyes groaned and Jack shook his head.  
She maneuvered around to Jack's side and hunched over, putting the camera out before them.  
"Come on, take the picture with us!" She pleaded to Reyes who shook his head politely.  
"I'll break that pretty little camera of yours with this ugly mug, Doc."  
"He's right you know," Jack laughed as Reyes reared back and lightly punched his arm.  
Even after the photo-op and the revelry, Jack Morrison was still trying to kick the growing unease in the back of his mind. When he would watch Zeigler interact with Reyes, it sparked something.  
 _Jealousy?_ No. It couldn't be that…he had Ana Amari, every bit the woman Angela Zeigler was. Ana was mature, just a few years his elder compared to the younger Doctor Zeigler.  
Even the nights he had wooed Zeigler over dinner and his humble stories about his life back home, she would want to hear the glory tales: The fights against the Omnics that she had missed while she was still rocketing through advanced emergency medical certifications and hopping back and forth over black tape from Germany and the United Nations regarding her membership for Overwatch.  
For Jack, those weren't memories he wanted to share.  
With Ana, it was different. She was a soldier, the best sniper in the Egyptian military by leaps and bounds, and she knew that the battlefield should be left as it is: a battlefield.  
Not a topic of dinner party merriment.  
It was comical, in a way. Reyes had his eyes on Amari since she first showed up in Switzerland, and he had his share of her. The way they could brood together, their dark eyes locking over mutual pain.  
He never found out why the two had fallen apart, or their on again off again courtship that seemed to dissipate in the past few months.  
Jack had left Reyes and Zeigler alone as he went downstairs, back to the fading atmosphere of the celebration when everyone would slowly begin to check in for the night.  
There was Jesse McCree, one leg hitched to prop him up on the doorway leading towards the dormitory wings.  
"Jesse, little late?" Jack asked him.  
"Ah shucks. It is ain't it? I just couldn't help but stay up wonderin'."  
"Wondering what?" Jack stood across from him, reclining back to the wall.  
"What is it about this place that makes folks so… _dramatic_?"  
"You mean what exactly, rambunctious? I mean Lena, she can be a hand-full sure and especially Rein and Torb when they get on their kicks but-"  
"Nah, it ain't what I mean," McCree scoffed, "The _Deadlock Gang_ was rambunctious. This here's different."  
Morrison took a deep breath. Jesse had a way of talking in drawling circles for an hour if you didn't force him to cut to the point.  
"I'm gonna mosey on outside to puff on this sucker, come join me." McCree tilted his head to the door which lead into the courtyard, and Jack followed him into the biting cold of the Swiss November air as he flicked his zippo lighter and sparked the end of his chubby cigar.  
"Now I know y'all don't think much of me. A gangster. A criminal…shoot, I hear what Zeigler's called me, but don't think for a minute I'm some dummy."  
"Okay."  
"You and Miss Amari. Reyes and the Doc. Y'all are an incestuous bunch."  
"I don't see what this has to do with anything, Jesse. It's late, and I…"  
"Torb is making us some specialty weapons for our Blackwatch Op. He gave me the new sawed-offs for Reyes and ya see, I go to deliver them at his doorstop trynna' be a gentleman…and I hear he and Ole' Orphan Ana in there. In his room."  
Jack clenched his jaw, his fist curling.  
"Be very careful about what you're saying, Jesse."  
"Woah there. I'm not saying they were… _you know._ But the way they was talkin. Like two people in love, in secret. I feel it's my _civic duty_ to let my friend know about it, seein' as how that's his ol' lady."  
"She's not my property. It's not like we're-"

"Oh shut it. Don't pull that crap with me Jack. I seen the way you look at her, the way she looks at you. The kind of look two people in love share. I'm not suggestin' she's bein a stray dog on you, but I just feel like you should know."  
"You know so much about people, don't you. You're what, 19? 20?." Jack turned around to go back inside, to confront Reyes before Jesse cleared his throat signaling he wasn't done.  
"Jack. Don't let this boil up in ya' until you explode on her or Reyes and make an ass out of yourself…and yeah, by the way, I know a thing or two about women in my few years."  
Jack's turn to scoff.  
"No, no. Listen." Jesse's mechanical hand clenched his belt buckle and held it up to the light.  
 _BAMF._  
"Take a gander what that really means."  
"I'd rather not, Jesse."  
"Guess." He insisted.  
"Bad Ass Mother-"  
"Bonnie And McCree Forever," Jesse cut him off, following his words with a detached laugh.  
Jack wanted to make fun of him for telling such a bold faced lie, but something about the way he said it and the way his silver finger caressed the raised golden wording gave it an air of legitimacy.  
"Bonnie was my Amari, Jack. I lost her to my own jealousy. I let it get the better of me one night and…when all was said and done, I had nobody. That's when the Deadlocks found me, and then well. You found me. Sure the belt is comical…but it was a joke we shared. I wear this every day to remind myself why I fight with the _heroes_ now."  
"You put 4 of our men in the hospital and nearly snapped one's arm clean off when we rounded you up and gave you a choice between death row or us. It's not like joining Overwatch was a completely conscientious decision."  
McCree chuckled.  
"Hell, I know. But when I'm out there fillin' these bots with hot lead, I know now that I'm doing it to preserve a future. For Bonnie, wherever she is. For humanity. Ain't you got a future to preserve besides your spotless record and a few biographies years down the line?"


	13. The News

**Overwatch HQ  
One Month After the Promotion.**

 ****Things had been to quiet. Too distant.  
Ana Amari opted out of an assignment in South America…she was still sick, and finally woke up on the morning of December 15th to make her way to medical and see Dr. Zeigler.  
As the Omnic Crisis waged into what would be the final weeks, the past Month had been brutal for Overwatch. Every day she would see less faces she knew in the hallways or in the cafeteria and more names appearing on the _In Memory Of_ digital display located at the entrance of their complex. More dorms emptied, doors now ajar into vacant spaces where her friends used to sit. Friends she would never see again.  
In the medical wing, located on the far west end of the complex, Angela Zeigler was clenching the hand of a dying man as several of her staff circled around him to prepare the body for relocation.  
"Ana?" The Doctor looked up as Amari entered the circular medical bay where various colored curtains were extended and retracted in a circumference all around them. Some beds full of pain, others of relief.  
"Make the arrangements, contact the next of kin." Zeigler instructed to a young man in scrubs as she made her way over to Ana, ripping off her gloves to throw them in a trash bin near her.  
"My God Angela. What's happening?" Ana stared beyond the woman in front of her to the body she was just tending to.  
"It's getting worse, Ana. The Omnics might have lost, but they aren't doing it well. Just today we've had 15. I have Genji set for recall so I can make some adjustments to his suit, but he's taken off to Japan and Gabriel, Jack…"  
"They'll be fine. I need you to work your magic."  
"You haven't been looking well lately." Zeigler looked her up and down before she pouted her lips in curiosity.  
"Come with me," Angela lead her to one of the examination rooms that punctuated the various beds sprawled around them.  
Inside, Ana propped herself up on the examination table as the paper covering crinkled underneath her. Unlike many, she loved the smell of hospital rooms. The clinical, sterile smell and feel was relaxing to her ever since she would go to work with her father at the Military Hospital where she grew up.  
"Thankfully," Zeigler pulled out a small palm-sized device and tapped the screen to light up,  
"The process of diagnosing almost _anything_ has gotten a lot easier in the past few years. No more pesky blood samples, no more…"  
Zeigler trailed off under her breath as she waved the device to Ana's face then down to her hips and then her ankles. A curious look on her face.  
"No more…pesky tests, ah?" Ana tried to find Angela's words for her, but the doctor was frozen.  
She tapped the device. Then again. And again.  
"Ana…" Zeigler whispered, "…You're pregnant."  
Ana Amari's breath was stolen from her.  
"W-what?" She asked, beginning to sit up as she instinctively reached for her stomach.  
The sickness was coming again, more from the news than the actual condition. She had suspected it all along.  
Angela's eyes were judgmental, and the warmth in her cheeks had vanished making her look more corpse-like than the man on the bed outside.  
"You're two weeks Ana." The doctor said coldly before gently taking off her stethoscope and setting it down.

Ana made it back to her dormitory before she finally let herself cry. She pressed her forehead to the chilled glass of the window and watched the snow fall as slowly as her tears while her hands locked over her stomach.  
She was pregnant. And she'd have to tell _him._  
Closing her eyes, she pictured holding her baby. Holding it as her mother would always envision.  
 _One day Ana, you'll get tired of shooting guns and saving lives and decide to make one of your own. A little baby I can sing to, and a little being I can cling to as hope for our nation's future.  
_ Ana would always tell her mother that when she was old and done with her adventures, then she'd consider settling down- but her mother would laugh at that.  
 _Will anyone ever have the ability to tie you down, dear? What kind of man would that be?  
_ Ana thought of her family in Overwatch. How the child would grow up with them.  
How she would never want the child to grow up to _be_ them.  
The television in her room was on the news- ATLAS' hourly report.  
"Around the globe today, the death toll rises as the warring Omnics were finally beaten into submission in Russia. On the opposite side of the world, Mexico saw a hellish firefight in the city of Dorado as one of the many Overwatch task forces went head to head with the mechanical threat. Our local Overwatch expert and U.N. analyst Donovan Kelley is here to tell us more Donovan?"  
Ana sat on the foot of her bed, mouth covered as the Irishman spoke about Overwatch over on the ground footage from Dorado.  
She saw glimpses of Jack and Winston. Explosions. Bodies in the street. Children crying.  
 _My child won't be born into this hell. My baby won't have to see this. She won't live through it.  
_ "What else is there to say about Overwatch that we haven't already?" The man asked the anchor for ATLAS news, the smug aura about him made Ana angry.

"What can you tell us about Dorado, Mexico?"  
"I'll tell you Ron, It sure is convenient that just days ago transmissions were intercepted between the Noir Nova financial group and a party we have solid evidence to believe was Blackwatch working in the area just hours before Mexican official Raul Solidad was reported missing."  
" _Blackwatch_ , you say Donovan?"  
"Blackwatch. That's the name they don't want you to hear about. And _Noir Nova_? Who's their CEO? Well it's none other than Overwatch's own _Gérard Lacroix_."  
Ana changed the channel. She wasn't going to listen to this trash, not about her people.  
Not about _Blackwatch. Overwatch_. Not about the father of her child and his involvement in either.  
But _Lacroix_ …? Why?  
Ana spread back onto her bed as the news cut to an international incident in Japan- the Shimada Clan.  
 _Death. Destruction. Controversy._  
Ana cried herself to sleep in the cold Swedish night. She dreamed of Jack.  
And of Gabriel.


	14. The Dorado Mission

**DORADO, Mexico  
The Day Of.**

The Omnics were putting up their boldest assault yet.  
"Damn!" Jack Morrison hissed as a pulse round grazed across his arm, searing apart the sleeve of his now dulled blue overcoat.  
"I told you, Jack, that coat's a looker but it ain't one for tactical advantage!" Jesse McCree was reloading, crouched down between Morrison and a shell-shocked Gabriel Reyes who was slamming shells into the barrel of his twin cannons.  
"They're getting closer to the church- that _can't happen._ " Reyes stressed as he lifted himself up over the blown apart wall of the shop the three were taking cover in as the Omnic death march came stomping down the street with blood in their eyes, and on their plating.  
"I still don't know what you were doing here Gabriel," Jack started, "But whatever it was-"  
"I told you Jack! Dammit! We were here trying to protect Solidad against an assassination!"  
Morrison shook his head, but he had to buy it. There was no way Reyes would lie to him here.  
 _Not now._  
"How many rounds do you have?" Jesse asked as he peaked around the bricks to fire off, two Omnics fried in the process.  
They being flanked. The city street they were on was a dead-end, with the ornate church standing proudly at the edge of the road, surrounded by shops and apartments as well as the nunnery which Winston and several others were currently stationed at- guarding with their lives.  
Bastion sentry formations had made their way to the rooftops at the crest of the street, and Omnic infiltration units were setting up as well. Across from them, Overwatch agents were attempting to lay down suppressive fire.  
"I got 12. Total." Reyes sounded defeated. Jack could see the distress on his face- these were his people.  
"Jack?" Jesse looked up to him. His boyish features now hardened with grit and scratch marks from the losing battle they had been waging for almost 2 hours now.  
 _We almost had them in the City Square. We failed,_ Morrison reflected before McCree's question had snapped him out of it.  
"I got a clip and a half Jesse. It's not looking good."  
The hails of gunfire from the Omnics tore through the building around them like paper, and from afar he could hear their men falling with cries of pain and the medic screaming for back up.  
" _SHAW,_ What's the ETA on that pulse charge?" Morrison hunched over to scream into his microphone.  
A gargle of static, then the pilot's voice:  
"We're One-click out from you, Commander," The man came through, "ETA…ah, 25 minutes!"  
" _Damn!"_ Morrison slammed a curled fist to the dirt beneath him.  
"Well? What is it?" Reyes asked him, hugging to the wall as rounds whizzed past him with frighteningly close proximity.  
"Not good. We have to hold here. _Have_ to. If we let even one of them die, it's over for us." Jack jumped to his feet and fired his helix rocket at the exposed ceiling just in front of them and just as he'd planned, the debris collapsed down through a blast of dust and rock to form a crude ramp which would lead further up into the 3 story complex they were pinned to.  
"Reyes, I'll cover you. How close can you get with those guns to do damage from the rooftops?"  
"I can't do much Jack, but…I've got something in mind."  
Morrison nodded and put boots to the ground as he sprinted up to the second floor with McCree behind him.  
" _En position_ " Gérard's smooth voice came over Jack's earpiece.  
A sniper by trade, Gérard was one of their most valuable assets on the ground.

Jack's eye-piece locked into the Frenchman, who was stationed just across the street, set up on an old rooftop garden which surprisingly was still intact, the seven beady red optics on his helmet shining through the night.  
Knocking down the door to one of the rooms overlooking the battlefield below, Morrison began to fire- precision was key, and he couldn't allow even one shot to go wasted.  
"Jesse!" Morrison shouted as the gunslinger clenched a flash grenade right next to him.  
"Ready when you are, Commander."  
By now, the units had spotted them.  
Jack had counted 4 Bastions on the building across from him, 6 more up the road, and about 20 to 30 Omnic foot units scattered throughout, all taking positions to fire.  
The stench of burned pavement and singed brick was potent with the smoke and debris around them, and took Jack Morrison back to his tours of war. The carnage he thought was over so long ago before joining Overwatch.  
"One down." Gérard whispered as the air cracked, and the exposed core of one of the Bastion's sparked with an intense blue and green display of defeat across from them.  
That got their attention.  
Quickly, McCree tossed down the flash grenades as Reyes summersaulted from a balcony cattycorner to them, firing off his guns like lightning. The Bastions on the hill took quick notice.  
"Reyes, get out there!" Jack shouted down below as he laid down suppressive fire- the Bastion's Gatling rounds shredding everything in front of it, even its own mechanical brothers.  
Reyes ducked and threw himself through the door of a shop closest to him, a scream of pain coming through the coms channel.  
Jack ducked back and bolted into the hallway before finding the furthest room the structure could offer, firing madly at the Omnic menace approaching Reyes' position.  
"Gérard, take out the other 3!" Morrison ordered as the Bastion units zeroed in on him.  
In an instant, the walls around him erupted violently, sending the super soldier flying back as he felt one of the rounds penetrate his shoulder, and another cutting through his side.  
Rolling over onto his stomach, he wouldn't dare lift his head as the Bastion fire still hadn't ceased, causing the ceiling and walls above him to crumble weakly.  
Jack reached for his biotic device, feeling the blood pouring from the wounds as he activated it.  
The warmth spread over him as the airborne nano-bots worked in tandem with his gifted- but weak- regenerative capabilities.  
"Reyes here," His friend's voice came in through crackling static and pain, "I'm hit pretty bad, but I think I'll live. There's a backdoor into an alley, I can make it if these rust-buckets are distracted."  
"Commander, this is Sky Ranger 5, Over." The pilot's voice jumped in after Gabriel's words.  
"Well it's about damn time," McCree cut in through a chorus of gunfire.  
Jack brought himself up, his gloved hands almost too weak to even support him.  
"Where the hell are you?" He hissed as he reached for his rifle, readying himself for more.  
"We're over your position, coming in hot with the ordinance, dropping in 3. 2…"  
Morrison bolted for the exterior, leaping onto a neighboring roof where McCree was tucked in behind a shattered air conditioning unit. The cowboy held his hat tightly with his mechanical arm as Jack slid in front of him, eyes to the sky as the air around them shattered with the jet above as it pierced through the night.  
In an instant, the color of the purple Mexico sky and the hue of orange and red from the flames of war below turned bright blue and white.  
The EMP Bomb, roughly the size of a small car, hung suspended in the air just 15 feet overhead as it discharged.

"Gah!" McCree screamed as his free hand clutched his ear while his augmented limb lost all functionality.  
Jack stood up to watch. One by one, the humanoid soldiers began to spasm- their limbs contorting and cracking into horrific form as they violently collapsed into heaps of scrap on the cobblestone streets below while Bastion units whirred around on their axis' until they began to fall apart in Jack's sights.  
The machines seemed to cry…auto tuned shouts of their last moments of sentiency joining together in a harmony that would have almost been beautiful if it wasn't so viscerally satisfying.  
Then, just like that, the song was over. The gears of the Omnic's bloodthirsty rampage were silenced.  
Morrison unclipped his eye-piece and let it fall onto the roof beneath him as he took a ragged breath.  
The silence was almost more than he could bare now, oddly enough.  
Looking back, Jesse McCree brushed the strands of his raven black hair that stuck with sweat to his exhausted visage as he made his way to the edge where Jack stood waiting.  
"That's it, huh. Just like that?" The boy who fancied himself a man asked.  
"Just like that." Jack acknowledged.  
On the street below, wooden shutters still splintered with bullet holes began to open cautiously as the worried faces of their inhabitants looked to see that their living nightmare was now over.  
It was likely, in this neighborhood at least, these people had never seen the Omnic automatons as anything but murderers, compared to the other side of Dorado, the _cultured_ side, where the Government workers and City employees had once taken these killers into their own homes as servants and appliances.  
When Morrison and McCree had joined Gabriel and Gérard in front of the Church, the survivors began to pour out, and then Jack realized what they were…and the thought of Reyes' Blackwatch mission disgusted him more.

The men, women, and children inside the church varied between those covered in rags and modest clothing, tattered hats and ponchos with starved faces and dry lips that longed for nourishment.  
 _Blackwatch_ hadn't been sent in on a good will mission to preserve a democratic chain from a death threat… _no_.  
They had been paid to protect the rich while the suits let their people die, withering away as just another casualty of the war economy. The older women, the nuns, came to them first with whispers and teary eyed looks at their liberators. Wrinkled hands, kissed by the sun from hours of honest labor caressed the blood and dirt of Morrison's now tattered overcoat.  
The Overwatch grunts who had come along with them were tending to wounds, handing out rations and blankets. Consoling crying children and medically deprived seniors who otherwise wouldn't have survived the night, let alone an Omnic warpath.  
One such elderly man approached Jesse at Jack's side. He pointed to his arm, which was now regaining some of it's functionality.  
Jack put a hand over McCree's chest to step him back- he'd been in situations like this before. People with augmented limbs, like Jesse had, were either seen as normal folks who took advantage of the technological advancements that came from the golden age of the Omnic invention- or traitors to their species, and sympathizers for the Omnic's cause.  
But the man wasn't about to fight him. Instead he bent over slowly, and raising his pant leg subtly to not draw the attention of his peers to show off a rusted metallic limb.  
 _I understand_ , is how Morrison had interpreted it. Jesse smiled, and tipped his hat; but the old man wasn't done. He brought his hands up to his neck and unfastened the cloth he wore over his frail figure.  
A burgundy poncho, with wide burnt orange designs across it. He lifted it to Jesse.  
"I- I can't do that, I can't take that," Jesse started at him, raising his hands. The man's eyes showed defeat.  
" _Jesse._ " Morrison whispered.  
 _"Mí hijo_ ," The man held the cloth up still, " _esta era su._ "  
Jack looked to his side, and a flash of understanding seemed to make it's way across McCree's face.  
"Thank you. Thank you kindly. Uh. _Gracias._ " Jesse put both hands on the man's arms and then took the cloth from him before swinging it around his own shoulders. It was big, but Morrison knew one day the gunslinger could grow into it.  
The old man let a tear run down his face- the small drop dancing down the wrinkles around his mouth before resting on his chin where it fell silently to the ground before he turned away.  
The inside of the church was massive, and it's high ceiling was home to a large bell just above where stained glass windows covered the walls around them.  
The pews had been pushed as far to the sides as they could to house the people staying there- bags and beds covered the cold stone floor.  
Jack left the world going on around him to make his way to the large crucifix at the head of the church, just above the altar surrounded.  
"My parents were from here," Reyes surprised him with his words, "There's a hundred churches like this."  
"Is that so?" Jack turned to face him. Gabriel had been busted up bad, his full lips darkened with blood and a decently sized cut made its way from his hairline to his right eyebrow; but the man's tone of voice wasn't one of pain.  
"Yeah." He reached towards a small vas that Morrison hadn't noticed before. The ornate container held a dozen or so flowers, thick in form with shades of magenta and splashes of ink black.  
"How many do you think died out there, Jack? How many do you think we failed to save?"  
Morrison held his tongue while he wanted to confront him about Blackwatch's mission.  
"I don't know. Hundreds."  
"There isn't enough then." Gabriel plucked one of the flowers, his fingers rubbing the smooth looking petals.  
"Enough of what?"  
"The people of Dorado use this as a grave decoration. A flower of passing on. It decorates every coffin and every tombstone across the city. _La Flor de la Muerte._ "  
Jack nodded, watching the way Gabriel's eyes caressed the petals.  
" _Death Blossom._ " He finally whispered.


	15. ATLAS News Archive: Dorado

**ATLAS News Archive** :  
 ** _December 23, 2046._**  
 _Bodycount Rises Following Omnic Assault in Mexico_  
 **Story by:** Daniel Stillwell  
 **Photo Credits:** _Alicia Santos, Dorado Journal Daily_

 _la Medianoche_ or "The Midnight" is the sobering name that has since been adopted by the people of the once peaceful coastal city of Dorado, Mexico to describe the recent outbreak of Omnic warfare in the area, even as the Crisis seems to be drawing it it's waning breath.  
Last night, the agents of the U.N. sanctioned Overwatch group warded off a fierce assault by the Omnics which lasted for several hours from the Dorado City Center to an old cathedral in the historical district of the City before a massive EMP payload was delivered via airstrike, halting the attack once and for all.  
City workers and disaster relief groups are still surveying the damage, which as of press time has a body-count in the two hundred range, once again calling into question the efficiency of Overwatch.  
In a statement from United Nations Secretary Gabrielle Adawe she told ATLAS News:  
"[Overwatch] did the best that they could with increasingly stretched manpower. All across the world there are battles to fight and people to save from the Omnic menace. Causalities have been felt within Overwatch's own ranks just as they have been felt by the people of Dorado. Our thoughts and prayers are with all who have been affected."  
Sources within the city have pointed out that just prior to the Omnic attack, members of a mysterious taskforce which we believe to be a dark ops team within Overwatch were spotted near locations where several high value targets within the Dorado Government were reported missing.

These same individuals were also against last months' controversial proposition from entrepreneur Guillermo Potero- CEO of Lumérico- which would see a clean energy source as well as help rebuilding from the past year of Omnic warfare that has plagued the region.  
Recently, alleged communications between the Noir Nova Financial Group and a party believed to be Blackwatch had occurred which has left many to ask who's side Overwatch- and it's various shadow factions- are on.  
While candles have been lit along the various shrines and collapsed buildings down the dusty roads of Dorado, the heart of the nation will likely never fully heal from the loss of families, friends, and neighbors.  
For more information, please stay tuned to ATLAS News and be sure to follow our various social media outlets for more as it happens.


	16. The Reaper

**Hadiqat Hadia, Israel.  
Present.**

"Reaper? Is that what you call yourself?" Angela took a step back from the man she once knew as Gabriel Reyes, her sidearm still raised to the nightmarish figure.  
The two gauntlets it wore, decorated with talons on the tips of it's fingers, reached across his body to reveal two shotguns which it held as if they were as light as air.  
"What _happened_ to you, Gabriel?" She felt the life that had been frightened from her body return now as a sickening knot of guilt and sympathy twisted in her gut.  
" _You tell me._ " It said through a painful wheeze as it began to lumber towards her- the monster's boots sounded like they carried a goliath of rage.  
"I did everything! I did…all I could to save you! To save Jack!" She screamed at him before she felt herself slamming back against the small cabinet at the wall.  
"That's a _lie_. You brought me back from the grave and now the only thing I know is _pain_. The only emotion I carry into battle is the desire for this existence to _end_ , but it won't. I'm deathless."  
Zeigler ducked to her left, then the Reaper fired- the blast from it's shotgun tore apart the wall just inches from her head- she attempted to dive the opposite way to the same result.  
She was trapped. But she wasn't going to die there.  
Angela knelt down and squeezed the trigger of her pistol- the searing hot plasma rounds popped off into the creature before she realized they were going right through him as his torso became an ebony cloud of smoke.  
Reaper dropped his shotguns to the floor with a frightening impact before two more materialized at the sides of his tactical armor.

In a flash, the clawed hands of the man she once loved were now wrapping around her frail neck, and she was face to face with the two slits of an infinite darkness that were the Reaper's eyes.  
"Tell me, Doc. Where is he?"  
"I don't-"  
The grip tightened, and Zeigler choked for air which she couldn't find before he loosened his fingers to give her another chance.  
"Where is Jack. Angela?"  
"Why? Is this what you're going to do now, Gabriel?"  
Zeigler remembered the last time Reyes had called her by her first name…it was the last time they had spoken as friends. After the pregnancy. After Amélie went missing. When she told him she still loved Jack.  
 _Loved them both._ It was the only way she could describe it. _But no one understood. They still wouldn't._  
"Don't call me that!" the Reaper screamed to her, picking her up like she was nothing but a feather and throwing her across the room where she crashed onto the floor.  
"Gabriel…" She whispered, picking herself up, "I'm sorry."  
The words halted Reaper as she froze mid-step towards her.  
"Don't…call me that…" Suddenly, he buckled over. A terrifying scream came from the pearl white mask, and the creature soon collapsed to his knees before the smoke came to swallow him again. In a whirl, the cloud crashed through the windows of the hotel room and soon was blended into the night sky, as if it were never there to begin with.

Angela Zeigler touched her neck where the claws of Gabriel Reyes had been and brought her fingers away with a faint ink-like hue at her pale skin.  
 _He was right,_ Zeigler thought, _I did do that to him_.  
She made her way to the shattered glass of the window, and stared across the world.  
 _We're all monsters now._

The next day was spent in a daze of blood and bandages as she mended every wound and every broken bone and mechanical limb she could. Humans and Omnics alike came to her broken and defeated, and left her whole again.  
 _That was her job. That was her job then, and it was now. It would always be._  
The smile she wore was genuine when she could make it, and forced when she could not, and the wings of her suit carried her through a trance of melancholy as the faces began to blend together and even take new forms. She saw Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes on the survivors, and she saw herself in them as well.  
 _You tell me._ She could hear the Reaper's words haunting her as If they had been the first thing said to her at birth and she wondered if the voice would ever fade.  
On the television monitors throughout the tent, the subtitles she caught praised the Russian warrior Aleksandra Zaryanova who had given up her star of fame as the country's top athlete to serve on the Krasnoyarsk Front as she led her country against the resurging Omnic threat.  
The war seemed like it would never end...and maybe it wouldn't. This was the price humanity was made to pay for their attempts to play God, and Zeigler knew that price all too well.  
The people she treated, she saw how they looked at her. How they looked at the Omnics next to them in the tents. Some had looks of fear and distrust, others of sympathy.  
To some, Angela Zeigler was just a doctor in an elaborate suit of armor. To others, she was the face of the woman who had been questioned on the world news in a great hall of the United Nations leading to the formation of the _Petras Act_ which had been the final bullet in the body of Overwatch that was then just clinging to its final moments of life.  
She wanted so badly to matter again, to help, but the satisfaction she once felt was long gone for her.  
In a world that had brought itself out of a near extinction level event like the Omnic Crisis, the claws of another threat were digging gashes into the surface of the planet that would simply not stop bleeding.  
 _The world needs heroes. The world needs to hope again._  
Angela looked to the bright eyes of the child whose mother had passed away from the day before.  
The little girl was a helper now, handing out small bandages and laughing as the old men and women would tell her stories and show her small magic tricks. The girl would live with her pain, but it seemingly didn't stop her from embracing life as it happened.  
The girl watched with glee as an Omnic woman twisted her hands around, spinning a small bouncing ball perfectly on the metallic tips of her fingers  
 _The world needs to be like her._


	17. The Snowday

**Overwatch HQ.  
Christmas Day.**

Gabriel Reyes was exhausted, and not even the super soldier genes he carried could stop that.  
He got up early enough to see his holographic clock by the bedside switch from 6:59 to 7 a.m. and tapped the alarm that would sound off in a matter of seconds off.  
7 a.m. was when he and Jesse would hit the range with the other operatives, and do their briefing before the sun got high enough in the sky to shed light on their dark documents and shadowed actions.  
Reyes made his way to the blinds and slid them open, a faint light coming into his dorm as he stared down at the snow covered courtyard below just in time for a snowball to smash at the window, startling the still groggy warrior.  
 _Jesse._ The cowboy's bright smile was as white as the cold dust that piled around the dull sheen of his brown boots, he and Mei-Ling were building a snowman which, so far as Reyes could tell, had a smile of bullets and it's eyes stood out beneath the lopsided brim of McCree's own signature hat.  
"Him and that girl," Reyes whispered to himself as he waved down at the two who were sharing a fit of laughter.  
"You warned him about making personal relationships with his fellow agents, did you?" Zeigler whispered to him as she hugged him at his back. Jesse and Mei-Ling pointed and giggled like school-children before she rolled another ball and pelted the back of the fresh-faced cowboy.  
"I did." Reyes turned around to attempt a kiss which she deflected with the palm of her hand raised to her mouth.  
"I have morning breath, Gabriel, I tell you this every time!" She laughed as he pulled her hand down and pressed his lips to hers anyway, he could feel the smile on her lips.  
"And I tell you, doc, I still don't care." He kissed her again, softer. "Merry Christmas, Angela."  
"I couldn't believe you woke up so early," She said as she went to collect a t-shirt from Reyes' recliner against the room's half-wall, "You think Santa left you presents?"  
"My mom would always bring that up. She'd laugh at me every year because I kept wanting to see the snow on the ground that never came." Reyes smiled at the memory.  
"Snow in Los Angeles? Not many white Christmas days then. I bet she's laughing still."  
"She is, from up there now." Reyes looked to the ceiling, a melancholy smile on his features.  
"Maybe she brought it, just for you." Angela's eyes softened, and it occurred to Gabriel he'd never told her much about the life he left back in the States. Angela knew him here, but Jack was the only one who knew him _there_. Jack, the golden boy. The one who seemed to doubt him now at every turn with his newfound authority…  
He'd never told _her_ about his family. His mother who worked 3 jobs and his father who worked just as many to provide for them all.  
 _Guadalupe Reyes would have loved Angela_. Reyes felt a weight at the back of his throat, and turned back to the window to blink away the emotion.  
"Does Jesse love her?" She asked.  
"Mei-Ling? I don't know. I always ask him about her, but he does his deflection. The laugh and jest before he changes the subject. I don't think the kid's old enough to know if he does or not."  
"She's good for him. Mature for her age- smart too, which is strange she's taken a fancy to Jesse." Angela laughed at her own jape.  
"The rebels always get the good girls, isn't that right Doc?" Gabriel slipped into a loose but formal dress shirt and changed into a pair of comfortable black jeans as he watched Angela adjust his shirt that now covered her slender frame and pair of white leggings.  
"Oh Gabriel, you like to act so tough. You're a softie." She stuck her tongue out.  
"Pft." Reyes rolled his eyes as he made his way past her to his bathroom to splash some water as an extra wake-up.

Christmas Day was special for the Overwatch team. Taking into consideration the multiple faiths and practices as diverse as each agent, they celebrated the spirit of the day more than the occasion itself.  
A big feast of various cuisines and deserts, presents and fun, then taking bets later on who would try and sneak back into the kitchen to steal the leftovers.  
This was the first Christmas Reyes would be celebrating with Angela at his side, and even though she would never admit to him what it was, she had seemed upset recently.  
 _With him? No. Couldn't be._ But just in case, he had gotten her something extra special.  
"Go on down there Gabriel, I still have to freshen up and run to my room for something cute to wear."  
"You sure?" Reyes made his way from the bathroom drying his face off with a pat of the towel he left by the door.  
"I'm sure," She smiled as she walked up to give him a goodbye kiss to the cheek.  
Gabriel grabbed his heavy overcoat from the hanger and followed her into the hallway in time to see Ana and Morrison making their way towards them. Zeigler hung her head immediately at the sight.  
 _Still. Still him._ Reyes swallowed his agitation as Jack waved to the two.  
"Up early, Gabriel. Don't you ever sleep?" Ana asked him.  
"I could ask you the same." Gabriel said as Angela made her way around the two without saying a word.  
"Did Jesse wake you up too?" Jack laughed.  
"Alarm." Gabriel answered coldly. _You have her Jack. And Zeigler still goes silent to the sight._  
"Oh Gabriel, I made my special _Koshari_ , you remember it right?" Ana asked, her hand laced with Jack's which made Reyes all the more uncomfortable.  
"I do. I can't wait." Reyes nodded politely and brushed past Jack as he made his leave.  
He made his way to Angela's door in time to hear her soft whimper from inside.  
The sound of her crying made his fist clench tighter.

Reyes shook his head and made a brisk walk to the staircase and outside to let the frigid air cool the temper that was boiling in him now- he saw Jesse and Mei-Ling right where he left them.  
 _Happy._  
Mei giggled, "Watch this!" as she scooped up the snow in her gloved hands and dumped it on Jesse who had his back turned, still adjusting their snowman.  
"Hey now, come on!" McCree shrieked at the cold before he spun around and tackled her into a hug as they crashed down into the fluff of the ground beneath them.  
"Gabriel Reyes! You made it out!" Jesse noticed as he picked them both up, brushing himself off.  
"Gabriel, want to play? Want to build a snowman?" Mei-Ling's cheery disposition and bubbling attitude was hard to stay angry around, and even Reyes couldn't bear to hurt her feelings by declining.  
"I think you guys have got it covered," He made his way to them while he stole a glance up to Zeigler's room where the curtains were still pulled tight.  
"It was Jesse's idea for the bullet as the mouth…not one I would condone." Mei shook her head.  
"And what's his name?" Gabriel asked, still looking towards Angela's window in hopes he would see her.  
He got two answers at once: _The Duke_ and _Chenguang._  
"I already told Jesse she doesn't look like a… _Dook_?"  
" _Duke_ , darlin', and that's a name you best not forget. Hell, I don't even know what a Shen-Wang is."  
" _Chenguang_. It means morning glory. She looks like a Chenguang."  
"They're both good names. It's a lot like naming a baby. You just have to reach a middle ground," Gabriel took a deep breath and stepped around them to head to the courtyard doors to let them squabble.  
"Hell Mei, I think we done alright if this is how our kid turns out."  
"She's got your smile, that's for sure."  
"He's got your eyes."  
Reyes heard more snowballs as he stepped inside, letting the cowboy and the snowgirl argue about their child.


	18. The Christmas Presant

**Christmas Day.**

"Why does she look at you like that Jack?" Ana Amari's jaw was clenched, the white light pouring through the window from the morning sky made her almond skin glow with a rich beauty.  
Jack Morrison loved her, he knew it, but the world around him hadn't been a loving one.  
"I don't know Ana. I told you." Jack kept his voice low as they sat in a small booth in one of the small lounge rooms between the dormitory and the building's main wing where the day's celebrations would be shaping up in a matter of hours.  
"You loved her once, didn't you?" She asked; but her voice wasn't an accusation from anger.  
"No. I didn't." Jack shook his head. He didn't want to have this conversation today, of all the days they could.  
"Then-"  
"There's no _then_ Ana. I love _you._ "  
The woman's eyes widened and she sat her steaming cup down to the knee-high table that sat at so hard the glass nearly shattered beneath them. He had to tell her eventually.  
"Jack…" She looked to the world outside, then back to him, biting her lip as tears welled up in her eyes.  
"I'm sorry. I wanted to tell you for so long, Ana, It just…"  
" _Jack._ " She insisted.  
"I don't know what you're going to tell me. If you tell me you don't feel the same way, well I'm a grown man, I can take it. But you're the most…gorgeous, amazing woman I've ever met, Ana Amari. You've saved my ass on the field more times than they could possibly give commendations for, and I knew the first morning I woke up to watch you smile in your sleep that I wanted to wake up to that every day.  
You're the reason I fight so hard to come home."  
 _In too deep to stop now,_ Jack thought. He took another deep breath.

" _To fight for a home to come back to._ I march into this war every time that dropship lands in the hopes that one day we can share this world in peace, and grow old together to watch the sun rise and set every day until we see our last."  
Jack Morrison held Ana's hands tightly in his own as the tears rolled down her luscious cheeks.  
"Jack I…I'm pregnant."  
She began to cry more now, through a strong smile with the kindness in her eyes as radiant as a heavenly light. Jack turned her hands palm up and brought them up to hold them at her face before he kissed her, and even the salt from her tears was a sweetness like no other.  
Morrison had seen combat as vicious and bloody as hell could muster, and faced threats of all shapes and sizes, and he had never been more terrified than he was now.  
Or more in love.  
"Did you hear me?" She whispered, still choking at her emotions.  
"Did _you_ hear _me_?" Morrison smiled, lost in her shimmering eyes.  
She laughed, a shudder of joy from her lips.  
 _"I love you too, Jack Morrison."_


	19. The Abduction

**Christmas Day.  
Numbani, Africa.**

A city of peace and prosperity in the dwindling days of the Omnic Crisis, Numbani hadn't seen it's resident daughter Gabrielle Adawe in nearly two years since the war began.  
Now home on Christmas, Adawe was alone. The U.N. had paid for her apartment in one of the upscale districts, just a stone's throw away from Numbani's City Hall and other government buildings so that she could easy blend back into some throwaway job as a Street Department Manager or an Omnic Relations Advisor on the City Council after her retirement, which she knew was coming closer by the day.  
 _They won't want me around the U.N. after the war is over,_ Adawe let her hair fall from the tight wrap that held it up as she made her way into her living room, _They'll take my children away from me and I won't get to see them again._  
One mission after another, her children had succeeded at acquiring as much admiration as fear.  
 _"The God Programs, Adawe. Once we control them…"_ **  
** _"Suppose Zeigler can successfully activate the Reaper genome. You've seen her work…"_ **  
** _"If we can use the ape, we can reclaim the Lunar Colony for future projects…"_ **  
**The propositions, the voices, they kept in the back of her mind even half the world away.  
The news, the people in the streets, they would openly mock Adawe. Mock her children.  
 _"When the Crisis ends, where do we draw the line?" The square jawed pundit would smugly inquire to his panel.  
"Why would you need to? Overwatch has saved hundred- thousands of people that would be nothing but piles of ash on the city streets," The defender would state, "I, for one, welcome Overwatch as our guardians."  
"And who do they answer to?" The beady-eyed internet journalist on camera would snap.  
"What's to stop them when they think that we need protection from ourselves more than we need it from the Omnics?"_  
Gabrielle clutched the thick folder In her hands and flung it across the apartment till it exploded against the wall with a rain of crisp white and cream papers fluttering and twirling to the carpet below.  
She hated the sight of it. She hated it all.  
Slumping down into her couch, she closed her eyes and began to breathe in slowly, letting her rage dissipate with every release of breath. Her blood pressure was high, her diet was poor, that's what her doctor had told her.  
Asked if she had any work related stress.  
That was when she got the phone-call about Amélie.  
Her phone vibrated anxiously on her glass coffee-table where her reading glasses and earrings were resting, and she leaned in to tap the small button on the face of the device which brought up a holographic display which flashed black once, then red. _Encrypting Line. Line Secured._ It read.  
"Adawe?" She recognized the man as the Ambassador for France on the U.N. Committee.  
"Speaking. Merry Christmas." She sighed.  
"I'm afraid it would be merry under other circumstances. Gérard Lacroix's wife has…been abducted in Burgundy in East-Central France."  
" _Lacroix_?" Adawe leaned forward. "How? By who?"  
"We don't know, but with him belonging to Overwatch I figured you needed to be the first to know."  
Gabrielle appreciated that.  
"Corporate espionage? I've seen the news, about Noir Nova…"  
"I wouldn't rule that out. But…" There was fear in the man's voice. The kind of tone one gives off when they're questioning if their next words could be their last.  
"…but we have a _word._ Maybe it's a name, I don't know…"  
"Well? What is it?" Adawe now felt his anxiousness.  
"… _Talon._ "  
 _Talon._  
"Thank you. Keep me posted." Adawe whispered as she covered her mouth to hide her twisting lips and shaking jaw. The woman quickly shut off the phone and went to shut the blinds from the intrusive sun which seemed to mock the dark news with it's illumination.  
 _Talon._ Why did that sound so familiar to her?  
Gabrielle felt the concern creep from her stomach into her mouth, and for the first time since she was enlisted in the African Army she felt _fear._ Not the collective fear one begins to ponder about their species like when the Omnics first began their uprising, no. This was different.  
She hurried towards the scattered mess of papers she had pelted at the wall in anger just minutes before the news and began to finger through them wildly- thumbing past the black ink and forbidden knowledge so fast that she could feel the miniscule cuts on her fingers growing more and more until finally, her dark hands smeared with a thin layer of blood, she found the document she was afraid of.  
 _Project TALON. [Redacted]. [Redacted]. Project Advisor(s): Gérard Lacroix, [Redcated], Jameson Socrates, Guillermo Potero, [Redacted]….  
_ "Oh my God." Her breath was hoarse…then she heard the pounding at her door.


	20. The Divide

**The Christmas Party**

"Can I get you anything?" Morrison asked across the table to Gabriel Reyes, who was reclining in his foldable chair- his arm around Angela Zeigler to his left, and a stuffed, groggy Jesse McCree to his right.  
"After all of that? No, I think I'm finally full." Reyes replied, looking back to Zeigler who's eyes had uncomfortably not shifted from Ana for almost half of their meal.  
 _Does she know?_ Morrison asked himself.  
"Say, they got anymore of them pumpkin flapjacks?" McCree asked, leaning over weakly.  
"Say it right Jesse, and I'll get you one." Mei-Ling smiled, sitting next to Ana.  
"Nahn-Gwa-Bean." The cowboy mumbled as the small Chinese woman slapped at him playfully as punishment.  
Jack smiled as he grabbed the empty plates beneath him to take up to the kitchen window where a few of the less-lucky agents had dish duty.  
As he walked, he watched Lena and Winston making their way over to the large pine tree that had been transformed into a glowing monolith of mismatched lights and ornaments where a more than eager Reinhardt held Lena up to grab the glowing star from the peak. Several in the room laughed and began to gather around.  
Morrison sat the dishes down and nodded thankfully at the fresh-faced redhead who took them before he was startled by the doors bursting open to reveal the small warrior Torbjörn galloping in on a small four-wheeled machine that vaguely resembled a horse, in his hands through a roar of laughter he held two large beer mugs, and as he drove further into the dining hall it was revealed he had an entire wagon of kegs with him.  
"Everyone! Get yer asses up here and let's have some fun!" His accent came off more thick than usual, and Morrison had a hunch his friend had already been hitting his own supply heavily.  
An hour later, the room was on fire with the joy of life. The tables had been pushed aside and the drinks were being served by the round, with almost every person on base there to celebrate.  
That's what Morrison liked to see. The men and women from every walk of life, from almost every country and island across the world they were fighting to protect, together and having fun.  
Some would salute him and laugh, and others would still be scared of him- the kind of fear that comes from being around such authority…that's what Morrison didn't like.  
As the time past and the merriment was in the air, the snow came again and the Christmas day darkened to the winter storm. The kind that would seem to be a dark harbinger on any day but today where the fireplaces were lit and the decorate lights let off a warm and comforting glow of familiarity to all that had looked on them.  
They reminded Jack of back home.  
 _"What was it like there? Was it all flat fields and blue skies like on the TV shows?"_ A young Zeigler had asked him.  
 _"Would you go back? Would you take me there to see it?"  
_ Jack looked across to Ana who was laughing and clapping at Reinhardt's triumphant tales from his youth in Germany, and his equally mighty stories from the now-infamous siege of the Eichenwald Castle in the earliest months of the Omnic Crisis. The way Rein had woven his stories were more in line with old-school adventure novels than they were with actual horror stories of war…Jack admired him for that.  
A sweet man that had always cared for Ana since they met, which had made Morrison feel almost guilty that he wasn't the one she fell in love with.  
Light piano music played over the room like comforting lullaby to the day itself, and a few of the younger ones went out into the courtyard for a snowball fight led by Mei-Ling and a very high-strung Torb who wanted to test out a _state of the art snow-launcher.  
_  
"Everyone is having so much fun. It's nice to have some quiet, isn't it?" Angela approached him as Morrison was lost in thought.  
"It is. Even if it's just for a moment," Jack sighed.  
"Look at what Gabriel got me," Angela brought hand up for Jack to see a shining silver bracelet clasped at her wrist, decorated with small metallic flowers which sprouted tiny diamonds within them.  
"You make him a mask for Halloween and he repays you with diamonds. That's sweet." Jack smiled.  
"He is sweet," Zeigler replied as she took a sip of the dark liquid in her glass she carried, "sweet enough to be a _good father_ one day."  
Her eyes carried spite that her words didn't, and Jack recognized the comment.  
"Yeah. I suppose he is."  
"Do you not think so, Jack? Who knows what the future has in store for him."  
Morrison's gaze narrowed as Angela took another drink and began to fidget with her bracelet.  
"You're the one she went to, aren't you?" The soldier asked, refusing to step around the matter any further.  
"I'm the acting medical professional here, among other things."  
Morrison hated her arrogance. _Other things. Like mad scientist.  
_ He remembered the procedure with the Shimada boy. The screams that echoed through the halls all the way up to his room.  
"She told me this morning. I'd appreciate if you didn't make our business public."  
" _Our?_ Oh, you and Ana. You think that's your business. It's Gabriel's just as much as it is _yours._ "  
Morrison's heart began to race and he could feel a growing discomfort in the pit of his stomach.  
 _McCree was right, wasn't he?  
_ "What is it about Amari that makes you two lose your minds? What is it about her that you two can't stay _out_ of?"  
"Angela, your drunk. I'm not getting into this with you here-"  
"Then when?! When is anyone going to listen to _me_?" She screamed as she shot up and flung her now empty glass to the ground with an explosive might.  
Morrison stood up as everyone stopped to stare.  
"Angela-" He reached out for her, but she recoiled like he was a monster.  
"Don't touch me!" She yelled before spinning around and storming out of the room which now had front-row seats to the dramatic scene.  
Jack raised a hand meekly for the rest of the room to look away and get back to their fun, but the loud footsteps behind him said otherwise, and soon he was being shoved from his back.  
He turned around to see Reyes now standing before a wild-eyed Zeigler.  
"What's going on here, _Jack_?"  
"Nothing Gabriel, she's just had a bit too much to-"  
"No, tell him _Jack._ Tell him about what you two are sharing now." Zeigler said through clenched teeth.  
"Boys," Ana rushed in between the two of them which caused Zeigler to roll her eyes with a sarcastic chuckle. "what's going on here?"  
"Ana please let's just leave," Jack held her by the waist and began to back away towards the side-door.  
They had made it out into the hall by the time Reyes and Zeigler had caught up to them, slamming the door in their wake.  
Ana still stood between the two warriors, and the rage was built around Reyes like an aura.  
"Tell me what, Jack?" Reyes questioned as he kept trying to get closer while Ana was still between them trying her hardest to be a valiant moderator.  
"Back off him, Gabriel we can talk about this like normal people instead of heathens," Ana began to protest before Reyes finally got through, shoving her harshly to the side and approaching Jack before the man reared back and sent his fist into his friend's gut.  
Reyes recoiled, clenching his stomach as Jack rushed to Ana and put his arm around her.  
"I'm fine," The woman clarified, "he still hits like a child."  
"Same to you, Jack," Gabriel cleared his throat and straightened himself out, "I'll get you for that one."  
"No you won't. Stop this, both of you, right now." Amari ordered, her authoritative voice came off like she was scolding two children on the playground.  
"Careful Gabriel," Zeigler spoke softly, "that's no way to act around the mother of your child."  
Before Amari or Reyes could comprehend what was said, the synchronized wailing of their pocket devices sounded with a harsh urgency. Jack tore his from his pocket and clicked the screen which popped up with a _Code Zeta: Abducted VIP.  
Amélie Lacroix. _


	21. ATLAS News Archive: Missing Person

**ATLAS News Archive** :  
 ** _January 18, 2047_**  
 _As OMNIC Crisis Ends, Search Continues for Abducted Overwatch Spouse_  
 **Story by:** Daniel Stillwell  
 **Photo Credits:** _French Police Database_

Just one-week after Omnium Forces seem to have deceased completely, all the world has begun to rebuild in hopes of a new future except for the members of the peace-keeping organization of Overwatch, who are still searching for Amélie Lacroix who was abducted on Christmas Day by an agency that has been identified as _Talon_ which the U.N. and INTERPOL have identified as a terrorist organization operating globally.  
Sources within the U.N. have suggested that the presence of Talon has been known to Overwatch for close to a year now, with Lacroix's husband, Gérard, said to be the head of the Anti-Talon taskforce which wouldn't be the first secret coalition Overwatch has been known for.  
Lacroix, 23, was vacationing with her husband in the countryside of East France when she was reported missing after husband and financial guru Gérard had gone back up to their villa to retrieve items for a picnic.  
"We're working very closely with law enforcement, as well as taking the search into our own hands to track down those responsible. We are exhausting all potential leads, and taking this matter very seriously as we also attempt to help clear-up any residual hostile Omnic attempts," Strike Commander of Overwatch Jack Morrison told ATLAS News in a statement.  
Morrison would not comment on allegations that the controversial _Blackwatch_ sect within the organization had been responsible for a shoot-out which occurred in uptown Paris earlier this week against what was believed to be Talon operatives. The incident left 5 dead and 12 injured.  
This is just one of many violent incidents to occur since the supposed era of peace began with the new year after an Omnic ghetto was raided and nearly destroyed by an Overwatch squadron who had supposedly tracked down a rouge threat to the location in east-end London.  
Overwatch's doubters have taken to social media activism, coining the phrase "Who Watches Overwatch?" a line taken from the Latin phrase _Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?_  
What are your thoughts on the peace-keeping organization? Should they be disbanded now that the world has entered a new era of peace, or do we still need their protection?  
As always, keep up to date with ATLAS News as we bring you the latest.


	22. Finding Amélie

**Outskirts of Annecy, France  
February 19, 2047**

Blackwatch was in position.  
The small cabin was guarded by no less than 10 of the blacked out Talon operates, and Gabriel Reyes let the cool air into his lungs with a deep breath. The kind that's meant to calm nerves and even out the intoxicating feeling of anxiousness…but that wasn't working.  
It hadn't been working.  
"Weapons?" Reyes asked into his mic as the 5 man team were spread out around the thin woods surrounding the location they had tracked Gérard's wife to- the intel given through shattered teeth and a gallon of blood from an unlucky Talon agent who hadn't lived much longer after that.  
"3 pulse rifles, 6 handguns, and what looks like a mean sniper rifle." Jesse McCree replied to him from a few yards away, his voice sounded hesitant. Scared.  
They were all scared. The thought of finding Amélie only for her to be long gone as a sick joke was a very real situation that they had to reluctantly prepare for.  
 _You expect to find her by killing everyone in your way? That's not how we do things, Gabriel.  
_ Jack Morrison's petulant nagging was something he heard even when he was a continent away.  
Morrison was too weak to handle this. Morrison was too weak to lead Overwatch.  
 _Morrison was too weak to tell me about Ana,_ Reyes thought as his fingers dug into the fine metallic handles of his shotguns.  
 _That's your plan, Gabe? Yer' gonna just take Blackwatch to the top and overthrow Jack? Your own damn friend?  
_ McCree didn't understand. None of them did or would…except for Angela.  
Suddenly, the air cracked with gunfire from the cabin.  
Reyes jumped and vaulted down the small incline he was positioned at as he gave the signal for his team to go into action.  
The night sky lit up in front of him with bursts of firepower as the Talon operatives began to scream that they were being attacked- but their cries were a bit too late.  
In a matter of seconds, Gabriel was at the bottom of the stairs leading to the porch before the 3 standing at the door had noticed him. They raised their weapons and Gabriel ducked to fire, his shotgun blasts sending two of the soldiers flailing back, crashing against the outside walls before collapsing onto the deck. Reyes cleared the stairs with a leap and was now face to face with the third man who wailed in pain as Gabriel pressed both of his barrels to the operative's chest and squeezed the triggers with a sick delight. On both sides of the cabin, the results sounded the same. Reyes lifted his slick black boots to separate the weak wooden door from the frame as it toppled over into a wide living room.  
Four other men were standing around a small chair where a woman's figure was bound and covered with a cloth hood.  
Reyes wasn't going to ask any questions.  
The man dove forward and fired the last shells of his twin cannons, killing two of them instantly as the other duo fired on him with unpredictable accuracy from their pistols. Gabriel felt bullets strike through his arms and legs as he tucked into a roll and brought himself up, head first, into one of the men's stomachs.  
He screamed as Gabriel shot a hand to the target's neck and snapped it with little effort.  
Now it was just one.  
The Talon killer panicked and began to fire- the accuracy from earlier was replaced with a familiar sight of panic as Gabriel avoided the line of fire with ease and disarmed his opponent by shattering his wrists and flipping him around into a headlock until the body went limp after a fierce spasm.  
"Gabriel!" McCree and the others had come through the backdoor as Reyes stood to dust himself off.  
"Lord almighty, where are your guns? You kill them with yer' bare hands?" Jesse was shocked, like he'd never seen Gabriel do his job before.  
"I ran out of ammo. Didn't have time to call in a supply drop." Reyes grunted as he knelt down to the figure he prayed was a still breathing Amélie. He yanked the hood off as the woman's eyes widened through tears.  
Her raven black hair was greasy, unwashed, and it fell in a tangled mess around her shoulders.  
"We're here to save you, it'll be alright miss-" Jesse put a hand on her shoulder that she recoiled with fright from.  
Amélie's frightened face was scratched and bruised and her soft whimpers when Gabriel removed the cloth wrapped around her mouth stirred a deep rage in him.  
 _If we did this Jack's way, she'd be dead in a matter of days.  
If we sat there asking questions and taking the 'diplomatic' approach, she'd be a corpse.  
_" _Je vous remercie_ ," She whispered- her voice hoarse and quiet, "T-thank you."  
"Don't thank me. We're taking you home…that's my duty." Gabriel waved off the others as he scooped her up into his arm. She was light- pale and ghostly. Reyes shuddered to think of the last time she had probably slept or eaten anything.  
 _Talon would pay for this. They would all pay for this._  
"Call Jack, tell him we're doing to need an airlift to the Annecy Hospital, make sure Zeigler is there." Reyes ordered to Jesse who went to retrieve the discarded shotguns.  
"You shouldn't treat these like trash, Gabriel…" He mumbled.  
"I gave you an order Jesse. Don't make me have to do this myself." Reyes didn't have time for the boy tonight.  
"I want to go home. I want to see Gérard…I want to go home…" The woman kept whispering, in and out of a daze.

When they had made it to the hospital, the French countryside was being met with a torrent of rain. The hospital which stood about 4 stories tall in the middle of the wealthy city was now being taped off and taken over as the dropships began to land on the roof and parking lots.  
Reyes stepped off the lip of the ship's bay with Amélie still in his arms even as the medics rushed him with a stretcher, begging to take her to which Gabriel had refused. Something in him told him to keep holding on to her, and he wasn't going to risk betraying that instinct.  
At this point, as far as he knew, anyone could be Talon. In this sea of blue-coats and U.N. jurisdiction, everyone was a suspect now. That's the only way she could have been taken so easily.  
So efficiently.  
 _Someone knew._  
McCree stood at Reyes side as they laid the woman down onto a large hospital bed where the scrub-clad nurses rushed her with machines and medical tablets as they urged everyone else from the room.  
In the fluorescent lit hallway, Reyes dismissed the Blackwatch team before they would need to be detained and embarrassed by the questions from the press, who were sure to be there at any moment, or by Jack Morrison himself and the rest of the _top guns._ All but McCree stood by him.  
"Is she…is she gonna' make it you think?" Jesse asked, cradling his hat to his chest as his black hair clung to his forehead from the rain and sweat.  
"She better." Reyes answered, and with that Jesse said no more but the screams of concern that seemed to emanate from him every time he would look towards the door to Amélie's emergency care room.  
Morrison came from the end of the hallway, his blue trench coat dragging weakly behind him from the elements. Angela was at his side carrying a large stainless-steel case, and with them were two suits that Reyes assumed were with the U.N.

Morrison stepped aside as Gérard broke through them in a dead-sprint towards the room he and Jesse were standing at.  
"Oh my God, is she there? You found her, she's alive?" The man was in tears, and Reyes had to look away as he nodded his answer. He couldn't stand to see a fellow soldier in pain.  
"Come on now, bud." Jesse stepped forward and embraced the man in a hug, holding him close and patting his back strongly. "She'll be alright. She's gonna pull through, that's what the docs was sayin'."  
 _He lied to him._ Reyes thought as he watched Jesse slowly break from the grieving man.  
"I need to see her," Zeigler exclaimed to a nurse at the counter across from them, "I'm facilitate any and all medical care to any member of Overwatch."  
The older French woman, somewhere in her 60's, looked like she had done this all before as she waved her hands to tell Zeigler no. Her arrogance was upsetting Reyes as he made his way towards them.  
"What's going on here, Angela?" He asked, looking between the women.  
"She won't let me in there! There's urgent, time sensitive things that _I_ need to do before it's too late."  
"You no see her, you are no…not _staff._ She is urgent care, she-" The nurse was halted as Gabriel brought his palms slamming down on the counter between them.  
"She's _Overwatch_ and has more credentials than you could ever dream of, _let her-"  
_ Reyes felt himself shoved aside by Morrison, who was now nearly nose to nose with him.

" _Not here_ , Gabriel. _Don't make this a scene._ " Jack hissed.  
Gabriel glared into Jack's eyes as anger crashed over him and blood boiled inside of him. He wanted to strike him, to smash the perfect teeth inside his thin lips.  
The lips that both Ana _and_ Zeigler loved.  
"Gabe, come on, let's go get some coffee," Jesse McCree approached innocently and Gabriel knew what he was trying to do. What he always did. Trying to mend something he had no place- no authority- in.

Gabriel snapped an arm at McCree's collar and held it there, glancing back and forth between Jack and the boy. He could feel his lungs about to burst if he didn't scream, didn't say something.  
Jesse gently brought his mechanical limb up to rest on Gabriel's arm. The tough cowboy façade was nothing when Jesse was scared. His years as an ingrate and a bandit were weak ones that Gabriel had been trying to condition and harden for years now…to no avail, clearly.  
Reyes swatted McCree's arm off of him and stormed down the hallway to remove himself before things got ugly.  
He didn't want Gérard to deal with that now. He wanted to be alone. _Needed_ to be alone.  
Behind him he heard footsteps in his wake, and while he hoped he'd turn to see Zeigler he was now facing McCree who stood two rooms behind him in the hall, a pained look on his face like a broken-hearted partner who lost their date at the dance.  
Gabriel shook his head, and the hoped the boy knew what he'd meant.  
 _He's attached to his mentor. To his friends. The family of Overwatch.  
I'll be sure to get that out of him when it's time for Blackwatch to come into the spotlight.  
I'll be sure he can pull the trigger if he needs to. _


	23. The Subject

**Annecy Hospital**

"Well? What is it?" Morrison greeted Angela Zeigler as she shut the door to Amélie's room behind her with a solemn click of the knob.  
The hour was late, and the rain wasn't showing any signs of waning into the morning.  
"I…I can't tell. She's bruised, Jack. They _hurt_ her and starved her, but she seems…for lack of a better word…fine." Angela's voice was bewildered and her eyes were heavy from a lack of rest. Her usually bright, golden hair was dulling now and fell limp to frame her angular features.  
"Fine? That's it? They've had her for _months_ and they just took her into her own…her own..." Morrison spun around and flipped the small stand in the hallway over with a rage.  
"…Her own backyard?! That's it?"  
Night and day. Every hour. Every hour he had spent thinking of her, worrying his blonde hair into shades of grey, for her only to show up less than 8 hours away from where she had gone missing.  
Every night he wouldn't be able to sleep next to Ana because he was out, boots to the ground, raiding Talon locations and beating questions out of anyone that Blackwatch was kind enough to leave alive.  
Every night he would think _he_ had failed them. That he had failed Gérard. That he failed Amélie.  
"Just be happy she's alive, Jack! This isn't about your hunt for glory!" Angela shouted.  
Morrison rushed to her and grabbed Angela's shoulders, backing her up against the door with a force that caused her armful of paperwork and supplies to crash at their feet.  
"That's what you think? Or is that what _Reyes_ told you to think, that I'm some selfish son of a bitch who was chasing her for another article in the news or some stupid medal?"  
Jack Morrison was close enough to Angela that he could taste the spite at her lips.  
"It's not what Reyes said, don't bring him into this," She looked away from him, biting her lip.

"Oh I'm sure. Just like the pregnancy. It's got nothing to do with Reyes, with _us_." Jack's jaw was clenched like a trap.  
Angela said nothing to that, and Jack pushed himself off of her with a tinge of shame for his anger.  
"What are they, Jack?" She finally asked to cut through the silence.  
" _Talon?_ I don't know. Even with what little Gérard used to get counter-intelligence on them, we don't know where they came from or what they do. They've tried to kill him before, Angela. I don't know what else they've done in the shadows while we were fighting the Omnics."  
"There's a lot happening in the shadows you don't seem to be aware of, Jack." Angela said so quietly that Morrison wouldn't know if she'd actually said it at all.  
"When can we debrief her?" He asked, moving beside Angela to stare in through the laced glass window of the door to the woman's room.  
Amélie Lacroix sat there, her limp hand held by her husband who was struggling to stay conscious.  
"You can't be serious." Zeigler scoffed.  
"There was something, Angela. They did _something,_ I know they did."  
"What's Ana doing now, Jack?"  
"That has nothing to do with Amélie, Angela."  
The woman brought her hand to Jack's arm and gave it a gentle squeeze as she turned him around to face her.  
"You're scared it's not yours, aren't you?" She asked him. No fear or malice in her words.  
"So are you." Morrison replied. _I am. But no matter what, I'll be with her. I'll always be with her.  
_ "You know how much easier this would be if it was just us, Jack? Just us together like it used to be?"  
Morrison shook his head. He knew she was right, but _why?_ _Why do this now?  
_ "It's not, Angela. I love Ana. I love Gabriel, no matter how much he may hate me."  
Angela's eyes glossed over, and her lips pressed together in a wince. She said nothing to that.  
Jack never knew what hurt more: that she had no response, or that he had finally admitted that Gabriel's anger was blossoming into something worse.  
The night- and storm- had passed and turned into hours of more waiting before Gérard was allowed to take Amélie home…before they were all allowed to go home.  
On the flight back to Overwatch's HQ, Jack watched the world lazily roll from the windows of the giant sky-ship, and he thought about Ana. About Gabriel. About the child.  
The soldier was interrupted as Angela slid into the large, vacant leather seat next to his with a sadness about her. The kind of look a person has when their troubles can only be repressed so much longer before they fester into something visible. Something as painful to see as it would be to feel.  
"I'm scared, Jack." She whispered, putting her hand to his.  
"Why, Angela? About what?" He wanted to remove her hand, but left it. The feel was comforting to him.  
"I'm scared for Gabriel…I'm scared that anyone can be a target now. I'm just…I'm lost."  
Jack put his arm around her and brought her against him- he could feel the moisture in her eyes on his shoulder.  
"Everything will be alright. You're Overwatch. You're a savior. If you're scared, we're all scared." He said.  
"Is that the _commander_ speaking, or the man?"  
Jack Morrison looked out to his own reflection, and noticed a tinge of silver at his temples.  
He let out a sigh, leaving her question lingering in the stale air of the ship as they drifted through the sky.  
He remembered when his daddy started to go grey. He remembered idolizing the man and the life he had built before the color began to leak from his similar blonde mane.  
 _What have I built?  
_ "I still think about you, Jack. About what we were. I think about you and Ana, and-"

"Stop, Angela." Morrison squeezed her arm gently, "We don't have to keep doing this. Just let the past be there."  
"That'll be hard in a few months, won't it?"  
Morrison was once again at a lack for an answer…because she was right.

When they finally landed, it was mid-day. The entire campus was on lock-down, and the news vans surrounded the gates like rodents' eager for their crumbs of sustenance.  
Ana was there, waiting. Her stomach was filling out now, and she attempted to mask it with a loose black dress that halted at her knees. Her warm smile was relieving in the cold and frightening world around them now.  
Morrison embraced her in a long, tight hug and kissed her cheek.  
"Is everyone home?" He asked her, looking into her eyes.  
"Everyone, Jack. This is big. Gérard has been taking it hard. Gabriel isn't helping. He's already plotting another run to go out and hunt for _them_."  
"Is he? You've spoken to him?" Jack's chest tightened. His jealousy was noticeable.  
"No. I haven't said a word to him," Ana assured him with a kiss and brought her hands up to frame Morrison's pale and exhausted face.  
"You need to get some sleep, Jack. You look so tired…"  
"I can't Ana. I have to know about her. About Talon."  
Ana looked away and shook her head before bringing her sights back to him.  
"Don't get lost chasing this darkness, Jack. Don't let it take you _now_. Don't kill yourself on this hunt for a phantom."


	24. Transcript: Amélie's Debriefing

**Encrypted Personal Mail Message: Clearance Level "Vanguard"  
To: [Redacted]  
From: Blackwatch Intelligence Officer Zachary Landcaser  
Subject: Amélie Lacroix's Debriefing Transcript**

* * *

[Jack Morrison enters the room at 5:34 p.m. Feb 20, 2047.]  
 **  
Jack:** Amélie. It's me. Do you need anything? How are you?  
 **Amélie:** I'm good, Jack. It's nice to see you. I'm…I'm better now. It's been hard…it's been terrifying.  
 **Jack:** You're safe now. Nothing can even get close to you or your husband, you're under the highest level of protection that Overwatch has to offer. I know this might be hard, and you can take as long as you need, but we need to know what happened. What you saw. What they…  
 **Amélie:** I can't. I don't want to, Jack. Please. Please just let me go home, be with my husband again…  
 **Jack:** Please. We have to know, so we can stop them. So we can _destroy_ them and make sure they can never harm you or anyone else ever again.

[Améliebegins to cry. This lasts for several minutes. Morrison leaves and re-enters the room at 5:57 p.m. with water. Amélie is ready to speak]

 **Amélie** : As a little girl…I was afraid of spider, Jack. I was so scared of them. I hate their eyes, the twisting nightmarish legs that carried them. I was always told- my papa always told me- that they were scared of us. That they weren't all poisonous, they weren't all…dangerous. I never believed him, Jack.  
They- _Talon_ \- they seemed to know every fear I had ever had. The first night, they beat me. The next day, they continued. They wanted information about _you_ , about what _Overwatch_ knew about the Omnics. About my husband. The next night…they locked me in a…a…

[Amélie breaks down again. She is hysterical, the medical staff enters at 6:24 p.m. to help sedate her into a state of calmness. She begins speaking again at 6:49 p.m.]

 **Amélie** : A cellar. The floors, the walls, were crawling. Every…Oh my God…Every inch was monsters. They were allover me Jack. I felt them inside me, I couldn't scream because I had already shouted my lungs onto the floor and the spiders ate those too. I was locked in there until I wasn't. I woke up in the cabin. I was there for days, and no one would talk to me. They still hit me, and they…they did other things.  
Other… _the spiders. The spiders.  
_ That's when you all came. You killed them. And I…and I was free. That's all I remember, Jack. I'm sorry.  
 **Jack:** All those weeks. That whole time, you don't remember anything? That's _it?_

[Jack angrily slams his hands against the desk in the room, Amélie is startled. Jack is escorted out and she is sedated again and taken away at 7:39 p.m. The debriefing is called off as completed]

* * *

 ** _Post Script:_**

They know nothing about us. The woman remembers nothing as she was trained to do.  
The

 ** _Widowmaker Project_** **is successful.**


	25. The Departure

_**Thank you for all the support and reviews, this fanfiction is very much a labor of love, and every morning when I wake up to new subscribers and followers, I realize how much more I desperately need to write!  
**_ _ **Very sorry for the slow updates lately, I promise I am working hard and hope you all will stay with me to the conclusion of this story.**_

* * *

 **Israel.  
Present.**

"We cannot thank you enough, Mercy." A man who called himself Akiva told her, his weathered hands cupping hers. They were course and hard from a lifetime of hard work and tanned by the bright sun that was never afraid to shine on the land around them. Angela didn't have the heart to tell the old man she didn't go by that name anymore.  
Not for a long time.  
She gave him a smile, removed her fingers from the man's weak hold, and went to collect her things from the table behind her. Syringes, cloth, bandages, splints, slings…for such a future where she held the power of regenerative capabilities harnessed into her staff, sometimes the old ways were the ones that worked best.  
"I just hope justice is brought to those responsible. The Shambali are a peaceful people, and this city didn't deserve what happened to them," Angela bowed slightly, "Thank _you_ for having me here."  
"We're having a supper down at the community center. I would be honored if you would come."  
There it is. The invitation. The _stay._ Angela knew they meant well, but she hated it. She hated to be touted as a savior. Being the center of attention for doing the only thing she ever really _wanted_ to do.  
If she hadn't gone into Overwatch so young…what would Angela Zeigler have become? She'd have been what she wanted. A doctor, settling down in a nice home just outside of Zurich with a loving husband and a family to come home to every day where she would sip her tea and watch the clouds roll over head, help make dinner, and tuck her children in after a nice story. Then she would wake up, go and help people. Comfort people. Smile and laugh with her patients and be there for them through whatever troubles they had.

That's what she had wanted. Not to become a celebrity or a pretty face slapped onto a poster for propaganda to defeat the Omnic war machines.  
"I can't." She said suddenly, realizing that she was drifting off once again. Akiva's eyes lowered, and she could tell her sudden response had hurt him.  
"I'm sorry, I have a flight leaving soon. I would love to but…I'll come back some day and join you. It sounds wonderful." Angela reached out to touch the man's arm, and that touch gave him a smile again.  
"I am afraid I won't have many months left in me, Mercy. It was so lovely to see you, the girl my son had always idolized. He wanted to be a doctor, too." Akiva's wrinkled features darkened slightly at his words.  
She approached the man and put her arms around him as he took a sharp breath, and she could tell that the tears he had probably fought for the past few days were now surfacing.  
"He went to fight the robots, like you all had. He never came back to me," Akiva stepped back and brushed under his right eye with a masculine sniffle, "but we won't forget what you all did."

At the airport, Angela was alone in the crowd. The television monitors that decorated the terminal she was sitting in were broadcasting the weather, the news, sports, and a follow up to the bombing.  
 _"The suspects are still at large, but are believed to be a pro-human rights group against the Omnic movement."_  
Angela felt her skin crawl. A small tick. An urge. She picked up her bag and made her way to a small, likely overpriced, bar situated just down the wide open airport hall.  
 _After all this and we're still our own worst enemy. The Omnics stopped killing…why can't we?  
_ She ordered a bourbon dry and let the drink calm her as she stared out the large wall-high windows at the runway where several large planes gently coasted to and from their positions.  
Zeigler hung her head to stare into the almond colored liquid which lapped back and forth against the clear glass that she gently traced her finger over.  
The world news was on next, and the iconic ATLAS news animation danced across the screen in a flurry of computer animated graphics of red and white. It was a report out of the Midwestern United States.  
A bullet train, heading to Houston Texas was assaulted by forces believed to be… _Talon_.  
Angela picked her head up to the report as a sharp dressed man recounted the incident.  
"Reports are sketchy at the moment," The man began, "but we're to believe that former Blackwatch Operative Jesse McCree was responsible for the attempted hijacking. He and the members of the terrorist organization Talon had tried to retrieve an as of yet unidentified device in the cargo of the train. No bodies were recovered, and the passengers and staff thankfully got by with only minor injuries."  
"Goodness," The woman correspondent next the man on TV exclaimed, "A train robbery at high noon, what is this the wild west?"  
The two laughed, a fake and grating laugh. Angela shook her head and took another swallow from her glass. It wasn't McCree. Not that boy.  
A photo of him was then shown with a number to call if he was ever spotted. Zeigler bit down as she took another sharp pull. The peach-fuzz and welcoming eyes she had known at Overwatch now had grown into a grizzled, handsome rouge with two piercing eyes staring out underneath a tattered brim of the same cowboy hat Gabriel had always made fun of him for.  
 _What happened to my family?_ She thought.  
 _What happened to my family?_


	26. The Strings

**Overwatch HQ  
Switzerland.**

"What do you mean?"  
Jack's voice, the panic in it, woke Ana up from her sleep. She was sleeping for two, eating for two, and that was hard enough for her; but she could always rest easier with Jack's strong arms around her and the child like a guardian- one that would always be there for her. _For them._  
Ana began to lift her head up as her bed-mate raised a finger instantly. The kind that told her this was urgent. She gave a glance to the holographic time floating from the device on the bedside.  
 _3:47 a.m._  
"No, that's impossible. That's-" Jack went quiet again, cut off by the indecipherable words being spoken on the other end of the line. He got up and began to pace, his lean physique quivering in the cold of the room as his muscles reacted to the stress.  
"We cleared her. She was fine…he's dead? Where is she?"  
Silence again. Jack was listening intently as he wrestled into a pair of jeans and tank top and reached for his blue bomber jacked lazily hanging against Ana's wardrobe. She'd never heard him like this, and her own heart began to race. Clutching her stomach, Ana put her feet to the ground .  
"Damn it!" Jack hissed, his voice rising against the restraint he was attempting, "I'll get the jet prepped and be there as soon as I can- do _not_ let her out of your sights, do you understand me?"  
Jack clicked the call off and tossed his device on the bed with a soft reaction as he put his hands at his greying temples and shook his head.  
"What, Jack? What's wrong, what happened?" Ana came to him and put her hands on his arms and she could feel his skin raising to her touch.  
"It's Amélie…she murdered Gérard just two hours ago."  
"Oh my Christ. Jack…" Ana recoiled at the shock and she could feel it through Morrison as well.  
Amélie Lacroix killed her husband. Her husband, the elite sniper who had ran more missions with her than almost any other operative in their family of soldiers had.  
Amélie. The quiet, pretty French woman who would often times compliment Ana so genuinely she thought she was an angel who had mistakenly fallen into the body of a mortal woman.  
She let the silence settle, and Ana knew Jack was struggling with what to say. Struggling with trying not to lash out and scream.  
"Who else knows about this, Jack?"  
"Adawe was the one who called me. The General from the U.N. She made it apparent that it was a very private ordeal. I have to go to France, Ana. I have to…" Morrison grunted, a primal groan from his soul. One that pained Ana to hear almost as much as it hurt her to see. Jack's knuckles were white as starlight and she could see them trembling with the pressure.  
"Come here, Jack. Come." Ana opened her arms for him, but he refused. All he could do was breath.  
"I love you, Ana. Please know that." Morrison finally broke from his hesitation and came to deliver a kiss to Ana's dry lips, and even his kiss was detached and hostile. She knew his anger wasn't directed towards her, but Ana Amari was scarred by her inability to help in that moment. That moment that would set the course for everything from that day forward.  
"Is anyone going with you?" She asked before he reached the door.  
"No. Keep it that way." Jack commanded.  
Silence.  
"Come back to me Jack. When you're done, come back to me…and know I'll be there for you when your mind is heavy and you can feel that darkness around you."  
"I know, Ana." Was all he could manage before she heard the latch of the door, the hinges creaking open, and the sound of it shutting as a punctuation to the morning.

Ana Amari didn't go back to sleep on that day.  
The morning brought news that Zeigler and several other supporters had been sent into London to help what was referred to as a terrorist attack on an Omnic neighborhood…that's what she heard, but Ana refused to watch the news or to see the world on that day. Despite the war's fiery conclusion as a testament to humanity, it kept getting more and more dark. The past week alone Overwatch had three security breaches of people attempting to trespass and vandalize the estate. Three breaches and four online articles shaming the organization from intelligence leaks which brushed away cobwebs on Overwatch's method of "intelligence gathering."  
To the media, the heroes that had painted their television screens and front pages for the past 2 and a half years were now reckless monsters growing hungrier with the power that seemingly didn't full them.  
Within them, a rift was growing more and more wide with the passing day. Blackwatch didn't act like they were held in the same jurisdictions or protocols as the rest.  
Gabriel Reyes was his own Jack Morrison, and his Jack Morrison had his own supporters.  
Ana Amari could see it on the faces of her friends- the ones who knew about the pregnancy wouldn't talk about it to her, and the ones that didn't know wouldn't talk anyway. She watched from afar as Mei-Ling would attempt to talk to Jesse McCree…and the strong cowboy, more under the influence of Gabriel than ever, would talk to her with fewer words and colder glances that even her elemental preference would be chilled by.  
 _You should be more nice to the girl, Jesse._ Ana told him once, and McCree, the boy who always was affectionate of Ana, would shrug and give a look to make sure he wasn't being watched before the compassion that broke through his hardened mask could be seen.  
 _I can't Ana. Not no more. I ain't got time for…schoolyard crushes.  
_ That's something Reyes had told him, she had no doubt.

Ana watched Gabriel as he made his way into the common area. It was her and only a handful of others, no one speaking, everyone keeping to themselves as if there were judgmental eyes ready to punish them.  
Reyes nodded to the ones sitting, and they hurriedly got up and evacuated like rodents scared off by a predator. And a predator he was. Reyes was never one to smile, but his masculine face seemed to be frozen in a grimace as of late. His dark eyes always under the shadow of his furrowed brow.  
"Angela is gone, so now it's okay to speak to me?" Ana asked.  
Reyes shook his head with a whisper of breath from his nostrils.  
"You know why we can't talk, Ana," He said, "we aren't allowed."  
"I'm allowed to do whatever I want, and speak to whomever I want. Jack doesn't control me like Angela controls you."  
Gabriel's jaw clenched as she pulled up an ottoman to sit on, feet away from Ana.  
"I'm going to have a right to see my child, Ana."  
Amari felt like she was going to joke on her attempt to swallow her fury.  
Reyes looked into her eyes and they seemed to study each other. Study the person that they slowly had drifted away from.  
"What we had was…" Amari began to speak before Reyes interrupted.  
"Don't call it a mistake. That child won't be a mistake."  
"The only _mistake_ here is you thinking that my baby will be allowed to be drawn into this war. This alpha-male contest between you and Morrison. You want this child to see this power hungry animal you've grown into?"  
"I'm not the monster here Ana. I'm the future of Overwatch, and I'm the one that'll make sure we don't fade into nothingness by the next time Talon or the Omnics attack us or the people we're sworn to defend. My actions reflect that while your boyfriend rolls over for the ones who hate us."

The look on Gabriel's face and the conviction in his voice told Ana he knew full and well what he wanted and what he was saying. He wasn't insane. He wasn't a monster, no.  
He was _driven._ But for the wrong cause.  
"Jack doesn't hate you Gabriel. He doesn't roll over…he wants what's best for us. You do too, but… there are other ways. My god, I mean, you two were best friends. Brothers."  
"We still are, Ana. But our fraternity has always been about _him._ Not about _us._ "  
"Is that what Angela has you believing?" Ana asked.  
She could see the doctor now, her skeletal fingers maneuvering through Reye's brain like a puppeteer stringing along their wooden playthings. Whether Reyes could see it or not…she wasn't convinced.


	27. The Calm Before

**Annecy, France**

Gabrielle Adawe had been trying her hardest to keep her nose from the U.N. ever since the visit on Christmas. She knew what it meant, who the man was, but it was innocent enough to keep up appearances. Innocent enough that she would be crazy to try and accuse the United Nations of trying to threaten her, but not so innocent that he message was lost.  
When she opened her door that day, it was a man. A plain looking man with a sharp black suit on and teeth that appeared to be filed to points creating a carnivorous trap of a mouth, and eyes that seemed to follow her to sleep every night.  
 _"I'm so sorry ma'am. I must have the wrong room. I must have gotten some faulty information. I hope I won't bother you again."_  
The man spoke so calmly that the sinister traces in his voice were so subtle Adawe doubted if anyone else would be able to pick them up.  
The message was clear though. She wasn't mean to talk. Especially not about _Talon._  
About the _Reaper._  
That's what made tonight so hard…so shocking.  
The Lacroix Manor, which was a generous understatement, was black as pitch aside from the subdued strobing of the blue siren lights outside in the driveway which would cast dances of vibrancy across the grim site in the second story bedroom.  
She had called Morrison…she expected him there at any moment, but she was still transfixed by the sight. Naked, with just blankets covering his manhood, was the pale and slender body of Gérard Lacroix his face frozen so calmly that the slight trace of shock was something one would associate with tasting a peculiar new flavor in a familiar dish. The man's throat was opened, and the dried crimson down his torso was fading to rust already.  
His widow, Amélie, never said a word, and she wouldn't for an hour and a half until Morrison arrived, looking older than the last time she saw him. _Much older._  
Adawe met him outside as the police officer let him onto the grounds and the coroners began to do their work.  
"Where is she?" Morrison asked after greeting Adawe with a firm handshake, his fingers cold and trembling, but she knew the latter wasn't on account of the former. He was angry.  
"She's inside, in their dining room. She hasn't said a word, and didn't even attempt to resist when the officer placed her in cuffs." Adawe briefed Jack on the wide front steps of the manor.  
"Why…why are you the one here? No offense." Jack's on edge attitude still reflected his manors.  
"Whenever one of our operatives' heartbeat ceases and their brainwaves stop, their neural placement pings the United Nations, who then notify me so I can get the proper family members notified or services arranged. Due to the…unconventional nature of this one though, I was flown in specifically."  
She noticed Morrison instinctively rub at the back of his head.  
"Who found them?" He asked next.  
"The live in maid heard some commotion. Ran up, saw the body. Called the authorities, and found Amélie just sitting out here in her night-dress like nothing happened."  
"Jesus," The man whispered to himself, covering his mouth as if he was going to wipe away the residual mess of the words from his lips, "She…did it, didn't she?"  
Adawe gave a grave nod. She knew this wasn't going to go quietly into the same calm night around them. She could see the headlines and those bastards on ATLAS news driving this into the ground.  
The tabloids would go haywire and dizzy from trying to spin this in as many directions as they could. Right then, as they spoke, Adawe could already wager that one of the officers was tipping off the press and that soon the reporters would mob out into the cold French air to get a good look at the widow, the murderer. Amélie had the face that could sell a thousand shipments of the news.  
She rubbed her temple to sooth the stress that was now overflowing, and could already see the words on that blacked out document. _Project_ _TALON. Project Advisor(s): Gérard Lacroix…  
_ The boots on the cement stairs interrupted her memory as the officer pulled out a wrinkled pack of thin looking cigarettes and slipped one up to his mouth and cracked the lighter to ignite it.  
Adawe stepped over to him and grabbed the cigarette from the man's full lips and took it for her own- he looked startled but reached for another one before speaking.  
"There won't be…ah, keeping this quiet." He spoke in broken English.  
Adawe took a drag, a long and thoughtful one, and swallowed the smoke like it was a drowning man's first gasp of fresh air.  
"We're taking the woman." She said finally, letting the smoke roll from her clenched teeth.  
The man began to protest before Adawe flashed her badge. He still looked astonished.  
"United Nations. I trump you every time."  
The officer cursed in his native tongue and started back down the stairs, toking angrily at his stoge to meet the caravan of other emergency vehicles which began to pour into the driveway at the gate.  
"Taking her where, Adawe?" Morrison asked, on her heels as she opened the towering front doors to the estate.  
"Wherever Blackwatch can coerce her into speaking."  
" _Blackwatch?_ You want to give her to Reyes and his…his-"  
Adawe turned on her heels and gripped Jack above his elbow, pulling him close to her.  
"She's _Talon_ , Jack. You can do it your way or my way. That's up to you. I fought hard for this organization and for your role in it, but I know that Gabriel and Blackwatch have a special way of doing things- a special way that might be more effective than your methods."  
"You can't be serious. She's…she can't be Talon. Look I don't know why this happened, but surely she was framed for this, there was another party, there was-"  
"There was a month unaccounted for where she was in their possession, Jack."  
"We debriefed her, we would have known if something was going on. If they had done anything to her, we'd have found it."  
"Tell that to Gérard." Adawe dropped her cigarette and snuffed it against the ornate tile floor with the tip of her boot, rubbing the cherry into a pile of ash and paper.

Amélie was in the narrow dining room, seated at the front of the table. Her raven hair covering her emotionless face. She hadn't even been crying.  
"Amélie? It's me. Jack." Morrison approached her slowly. Adawe stood back, watching.  
"Jack. I'm scared." Amélie whispered in a voice so dry an Omnic could have called it emotionless.  
"We're taking you home. I promise. We're taking you to see your friends…" Jack sighed, "…to see Gabriel."  
" _Gabriel."_ The woman whispered like a revelation. As if she knew what to do…as if this was all a part of a plan.


	28. The Stormfall

**Annecy Private Airfield.**

The carrier jet was dipping below the clouds now, preparing to land.  
Morrison stood on the landing strip with Adawe as she choked down another cigarette, Amélie locked in the back of the African woman's jet black vehicle which would have blended perfectly against the colorless sky around them if not visible by lazy drops of rain that decorated the car's frame.  
"Talon." Morrison said it out loud again, as if he could will them into existence.  
"What's happening to this world, Jack?" Gabrielle turned to him.  
"Too much for this world. We're too much for it." Morrison spoke quietly.  
"This will be all over the news tomorrow. You'll need to be prepared for a statement. You'll need to be prepared for what they'll say."  
"What they'll say? Does it make a _damn_ what they say, Gabrielle? They think we're murderers and black ops hangmen who're too trigger happy now that we don't have robots to fry. They call me and Reyes things that would make Adolf Hitler blush! I'm bringing my child into _this_?"  
"Child?" Adawe was surprised by that, as if he'd said nothing else.  
"Ana and I…" The distraction was enough to calm him, "she's expecting."  
Gabrielle chuckled softly, and let a small cough interrupt her laugh,  
"I didn't know you could do that. The super soldier program and all of that."  
Morrison's turn to laugh; he shook his head.  
"Surprise to the both of us, ma'am." Jack shook his head.  
The goliath aircraft was closing in now, the low hum of its engines and turbines meant it was time to grab Amélie. Morrison walked back to the car with Adawe trailing, and he put his hand to the door.  
"Alright, let's get you out of here." He opened it to an empty cab.

Amélie Lacroix was gone…and only the handcuffs were left.  
 **  
**"What the hell?" Morrison shouted, yanking open the door so hard the hinges nearly snapped off. Gabrielle ran to the other side of the vehicle, as if she would be able to find her there.

Nothing. Nothing at all.

"We were, what, 10 feet away?!" Adawe reached for her sidearm and spun around, pressing her back against the cold, wet surface of her car.  
"Amélie?" She shouted the name at the darkness.  
"You were right, Gabrielle," Jack finally spoke, "She's a weapon. She's _Talon's_ now." 

* * *

Adawe had not only been right about that, but about the media. _About the fallout._

For the next several weeks, every mission Jack Morrison had ran was done under a lens of scrutiny and examination, and when he would come back from fighting terrorists and crime lords, from saving people from their wrecked cities and homes from hurricanes and storms, he would hold Ana and his child in her tight against the world around them knowing that nothing he did was ever going to be good enough as the majority turned into the minority and vice-versa. The same ones that would spin editorials about how great Overwatch was, about how inspiring these heroes of the endless storm would bring humanity from the darkness, would now spit venom at them for even existing.

A hundred lives could be saved, and it wouldn't be good enough for the 50 that couldn't.  
Morrison would come back later than he used to. He would sit and pour a few drinks more than he used to. He would feel hatred more than he used to. The rest of the year would be darker, and when Jack Morrison thought that he wouldn't see the light again…that's when his daughter was born. His light was back, and finally it almost looked like Overwatch was going to make it. 

* * *

**Overwatch Headquarters.**

It was November 15, 2047, and the world had been quiet. Jack Morrison sat, Ana Amari's hand in his own, as they shared coffee on the spacious balcony looking over the mountains that captivatingly touched heaven above them. In the past weeks, Gabriel's edge was lost around Ana but not towards Morrison, no. The edge was sharper to him now. Angela wouldn't hardly speak to either of them.

There was a wind of change that danced down the corridors when the Shimada boy had returned to them for diagnostic repairs and maintenance from Torbjörn and Zeigler, and had surprisingly decided to stay until the heat was off of him for the deep-cover mission he was running against his own family's crime syndicate.  
 _"Genji Shimada is back,_ Reinhardt rejoiced one night over a pint of lager, " _this world really has gone mad!"_ His bellowing voice and hearty accent resulted in laughs and cheers, even a nodding smile of approval from the cybernetic warrior.  
Winston was even hard at work with several creative, if impractical, devices for Jack and Ana's baby.  
 _"I call it a noise-cancellation bubble, Lena and I have been hard at work on it all week, Jack. I think you'll really enjoy it."_ The lovable ape tried to activate the small gadget which let out such a shocking screech it shattered half of the beakers and windows in Winston's laboratory.  
 _"We still 'ave some adjustments to make, love."_ Lena laughed it off with light embarrassment.

"Gabriel gave you that?" Jack asked in the present, taking in the fresh mountain air.  
Ana clutched the small pendant that hung around her neck. It was rusted and faded, but pretty in its own way.  
"He said his mother used it when she was pregnant with him…it's a good luck charm in Dorado, he said."  
"Hm." Morrison took another drink.  
"Stop, Jack. It's at least thoughtful." Ana sighed.  
Jack let it slide. He didn't want to fight, not today.  
"You really don't know what it is? You're not just keeping this a secret to pull one over one me?" Morrison smiled coyly, leaning across the table.  
"I don't know Jack, maybe I am…maybe I'm not?" Amari bit her lip to try and hide a mischievous grin.  
"I want to name him _Duke._ " Morrison sat back in his chair, amused at the reaction he was likely going to get.  
"Oh my word, Jack," Ana shook her head, "No! I'm not naming him after a movie star, _if_ it's a him!"  
"Then what? What if it's a girl? What would _you_ like?" Jack was curious. It was a subject they would dance around, but still never settled on.  
"Something traditional…" Ana trailed off, lackadaisically as if she was watching the wind blow from a spot years ago in her own mind, "…something happy _. Akilah_ or _Ululani_ or _F-_ "  
Ana Amari's eyes widened like saucers, and she jolted up to clutch the table as her cup collapsed to the ground with a crash.  
Jack leaped up to help her, then he realized what was happening.  
 _Ana Amari was going into labor._


	29. ATLAS News Archive: The Second Crisis

**ATLAS News Archive:  
** _Feb 24, 2056._ **  
Second Omnic Crisis Looming as OVERWATCH Crumbles Amidst Changing Times  
Story by: **_Daniel Stillwell_

It wasn't but 20 years ago that the Overwatch Organization was mobilized to combat the Omnic Crisis that consumed half the world in its iron clutches of blood and war, and it would appear despite a somewhat peaceful coexistence with the Omnics, more trouble may be on the horizon.  
In Russia and Korea, Omnium Factories are beginning to spring back to life forcing action on behalf of their nation's governments. Leaks from within the Korean government hint that the drone army of Mobile Exo-Force fighters, or _MEKA,_ has taken to recruiting and drafting South Korean nationals to manually pilot the machines in order to combat the unnamed Omnic Titan that has proved impervious to any form of attempted annihilation in the past, and in Russia reports from the Kremlin and leaked e-mails from Volskaya Industries suggest that the country has increased production on their _Svyatogot_ Machines to further repel the relentless Omnics during what many are calling the Second Omnic Crisis. Russia, among other nations, has shown their disapproval towards Omnics so severely that they rejected the United Nation's proposed Omnic Peace Act which was attempted years ago that lead to Australia and several other countries accepting Omnic refugees from the war.  
"I had family in Moscow," Katrina Doborev told ATLAS News, "and when I married my husband, an Omnic, I was disowned…I can't even go home anymore. It's awful there. His people are shot on sight, and I would be too."  
As tensions mount against the Omnic race, Overwatch has struggled to find a balance for what good they can accomplish in this world.

Just last month, a strike force had attempted to defuse a hostage situation in Libya which ended in complete disaster while the renegade _Blackwatch_ faction reportedly laid waste to an entire village just outside the Omnic Capital of the World, Numbani, in an attempt to catch a local warlord who had allegedly been smuggling illegal Omnic weaponry out of the city .  
This is all on the heels of last year's U.N. Summit in New York that showed funding for Overwatch had been cut by over a billion dollars. Since then, member numbers have declined sharply and former agents of the group have begun seeking employ in the private sector.  
"They're done," an anonymous source within the U.N. told ATLAS News, "Half the group just wants to smoke Omnics, and the other just wants to get paid. It's not what it used to be, and everyone knows that."  
Overwatch sponsors have also cut ties with the group including generous benefactors such as _LumériCo_ and _Nova Noir._ Despite all of this, the City of Numbani is still moving forward with their Overwatch Museum at the request of local resident and former Overwatch handler Gabrielle Adawe who stepped down two years ago following allegations of foul play regarding the late Gérard Lacroix.  
For more, continue to read _ATLAS NEWS_ and follow us on….


	30. The Cowboy and The Snow

**Overwatch HQ  
14 Years Before the Recall. **

Jesse McCree was growing older, but they always said the older the cowboy the harder they were to take down. He'd always thought of his own daddy when he thought of that expression.  
He'd always thought about a lot of things as his mechanical fingers brushed over the casing of the bullet he held while he watched Reyes across from him, picking at this goatee which had adopted fine specks of grey in it over the years.  
"Ain't gonna make you any younger." McCree cracked, letting the bullet he held slide into the cylinder of his revolver and giving it a playful twirl.  
"What did I tell you, Jesse? That mouth of yours could use a fist or some tape." Reyes wasn't in a joking mood. He hadn't been in a long time.  
Talon had been getting more sophisticated, and more deadly as the time has passed. Their actions were almost done completely in the shadows…until they weren't. When Talon wanted to go big and make themselves known, they did it.  
 _And they make us pay for it too,_ McCree thought, _a bloody damn price._  
The door to the armory opened timidly behind them, and a small head poked through the entry. _Fareeha._ _  
_"Uncle Jesse! Uncle Gabriel!" She laughed, seeing the two of them as she made her way over to the table the both of them sat at. McCree quickly twirled his gun and slid it neatly, locking into place at the holster on his hip.  
"Well howdy there, cowgirl. Causin trouble?" Jesse gave his knee a tap and the girl climbed up with a smile. Her dark hair and cinnamon-colored face glowing with a smile as she grabbed his hat and put it over her head, the brim falling nearly to her eyes.  
"Mommy was busy and told me not to wander too far, so I figured I'd come see you." She said.

"You should listen to your mother." Gabriel replied coldly, getting up to make sure the gun racks were locked tight at the back of the room.  
"Are you going on another adventure?" Fareeha questioned, noticing Gabriel's strapped on tactical vest and khakis.  
"Soon," Gabriel said to her walking towards the door, "Where is your mother at?"  
As Fareeha began to answer, McCree glanced at the time and nearly kicked the poor girl off of him as he began to get up.  
"Woah there girl, let's let Uncle Jesse up," The cowboy sat her down gently as he checked his body for all his belongings.  
"Are _you_ going on an adventure?" Fareeha asked him now.  
"No, no," Jesse chuckled, "I promised a certain lady I'd see her off."  
McCree's answer earned a pensive glare from Reyes, who knew exactly what he meant…and Jesse already knew he didn't approve.  
 _This isn't the place for emotions. This isn't the place to fall in love, especially in Blackwatch. You got that?_  
Reyes always failed to mention how it was somehow different than he and Dr. Zeigler. Reyes never managed to tell Jesse that it wasn't alright for he and Mei-Ling to be together, but it was alright for him to pine over the cold Doctor every waking moment.  
"That's okay Uncle Jesse, Gabriel can take me back to my mommy and daddy," Fareeha held McCree's hand and gave it a squeeze as his mechanical one reached for his hat off her head which sparked a look of frustration in little Fareeha. She liked that hat. _A lot._  
Jesse looked over to Gabriel whose visible indifference to the girl had, for a second, turned into something else. Something that brought a very human, and very sad, look across his eyes.  
"Will you take me to my _mommy and daddy_?" Fareeha asked him. 

* * *

McCree raced up the stairs to the ground floor as fast as boots could carry him with his spurs clacking at his ankles every thunderous step of the way.  
Mei-Ling was leaving to Antarctica as part of Overwatch's latest big geological project to measure the effects of Global Warming in comparison to Omnium production _or something like that._

The landing pad in the estate's backyard was visible through the ceiling high windows of the hallway he raced down, and he there he saw Mei-Ling and several other warmly dressed scientists ready to board the huge aircraft.  
 _Awh shoot,_ Jesse cursed himself. He had to hurry. He raced to the back door and tore through it with a yell from his lips and the wave of his hat in his hands to get her attention.

"Hey! Hold up!" He shouted, jogging and now almost out of breath. _I gotta quit those damn cigars._  
"Jesse?" Mei-Ling reacted, turning to meet him as he barley stopped before his momentum sent him crashing into her.  
"You…" He gasped for air, taking a deep breath, "You, didn't think you could just leave me now, did ya?"  
A smirk was at Mei-Ling's full cheeks, and her eyes were welling with what looked like tears.  
"Don't do this to me, Jesse." She whispered. Her smile quickly turning into a frown of pain that she had to bite her thin lips to hide.  
"Look…I know it's been strange. It's been hard for me to…be with ya', but that's not because of you. It's because of me, and because of _Blackwatch_. And Gab-"  
"You've had all these years. All this time to try and talk to me like a normal person, and you expect me to throw away my work to be with you _now_?" Mei-Ling's eyes narrowed, and her lip quivered.  
"No. No I don't. I just want to tell you that when you get back…I'll be here, Okay? I'll be here to make it work. I'm requesting a transfer out of Blackwatch, alright? I'm tired of playin' the badguy, Mei."  
"Jesse this isn't jus' some short vacation I'll be out there for at least a month to collect research data and to…"  
McCree brought his hand to her cheek and leaned in towards her. Her hands tried to push away at his torso for a brief instant before her words were lost at his lips, and she closed her eyes to the kiss.  
"I'll be here, Mei. Shoot, I can be here till the cows come home." The cowboy smiled at her until finally she smiled back.  
"You know I can never understand half of what you say." She brought her hand up to scratch at Jesse's thick sideburns with a satisfied giggle.  
McCree took a step back and tipped his hat to the woman, then pointed up at the rest of the scientists watching with wide-eyed suspense.  
"You gotta' plane to catch lil' miss."  
Mei-Ling's grin was as white as the mountains behind them, and her face was a shade of soft pink.  
"Goodbye Jesse. I'll be back soon."  
"I know you will."


	31. The Contingency

p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .2in;"strongUnited Nations Headquarters. br / New York City, NY. br / br / /strong"We have word that several rouge operatives within Blackwatch are in place." An older woman spoke, her sharp accent carefully annunciating every syllable. br / The round table, populated by various holograph projections of the U.N.'s council, sat silently. Patiently. br / "And Dr. Zeigler?" A younger man, one of the newer additions, questioned. The way he casually spoke her name with the rise in the pitch of his voice at the lingering question mark told Guillermo that he wasn't as informed as he wanted to be. br / "Her close relationship with Reyes makes him the optimal candidate for the emReaper /emgenome to be activated. We have…concluded…that the same effect would not be carried out by activating Morrison." An American man spoke. br / "The emReaper /emcan only be activated upon, well, the candidate being clinically dead. We've tied its activation directly to the emCaduceus, /emper the recent advancements Zeigler and the emSwede/em have made to it," A southern accent this time. br / emAnother American? /emGuillermo figured as much. Even with the Eagle's dying breath it still got it's claws into everything it could. Finally, he cleared his / "The energy we're producing from our LumériCo plant in Dorado is enough to power several small nations. Mexico continues to grow and strengthen in preparation for the next Omnic Assault," Guillermo was satisfied. He'd only been on the council for the better half of 6 years, but he felt he was almost one of them. br / "Fantastic. Thank you Guillermo," A woman replied to him with a condescending tone at her / br / "Now then. This meeting symbolizes our first phase in what will become a… brighter world. One without Overwatch's intervention in emTalon/em's affairs. From the simulations we've run with emATHENA/em, Reyes should be more than capable of taking Morrison out, and establishing Blackwatch in control under Talon's umbrella." an older man said. No doubt to his / "And…if he can't?" A woman asked, her voice sounded Australian. br / "Athena has never been wrong before. Once Reyes murders Jack, he will fall too, and we'll force his hand to Talon." The old man had been planning this for a long / "Overwatch has a lot of heroes. What should happen if they come back to resist?"br / "emThat's why we'll have Reaper./em" /p 


	32. The Sniper's Dance

**Somalia.  
8 months later.**

"I told you, you don't have to do this Ana. You're a mother now, you're allowed some free time. Some rest," Jack Morrison looked at Ana as they stood in their own private corner of the carrier jet's house-sized cabin.  
Ana's lips pursed into a sign of resistance.  
"I'm a _Strike Captain_ as well, Jack; and I've had all the _free time_ I could possibly handle. I told you. This is what I need to do…it's who I am. And don't ever try and tell me different."  
"Ana, that's not what I meant." Morrison put his hand to her shoulder, but she jerked from the touch.  
"I love you." He whispered.  
Her expression warmed, only slightly.  
"I know, Jack."  
Morrison initially objected to being on the same strike team as Ana after Fareeha was born.  
He objected to a lot of things when she was born, but he was a soldier and so was Ana, and she wouldn't stop being that on account of being a mother…nor could he on account of being a father.  
The mission was simple enough that time. Talon was holding several scientists and research assistants hostage at one of the Somalian Government's renewable energy plants just outside of Mogadishu.  
There were a handful of them, and no demands…just the way this fresh-faced team liked it.  
Even as Overwatch continued to falter, bright new soldiers looking to help defend their planet were always showing up with prospects bigger than their sanity.  
 _Al-Farouk, Bayless, Kimiko, Mirembe, Singh_.  
Morrison looked at them, still either strapped in tight, or pretending to play it cool by standing by the bay doors, watching the Earth below them turn into sand and structures. Kimiko was a mother, like Ana, she never failed to mention her three children back in Japan.  
Singh was a handsome young man. Bright eyed and had a heart of a gold. He joined Overwatch for the money to support his sister with Down's Syndrome.  
Bayless reminded Jack of himself a lifetime ago. Shining blonde hair stood almost straight up just above his bright blue eyes and always eager demeanor.  
 _Just here to have fun, maybe kick some ass, SIR!  
_ Mirembe was a looker alright, and the new recruits never failed to mention that- until she would twist their arm to the point of snapping and make them tap out through tears, all with a grin on her tanned features. She was in Overwatch for the same reason Singh was- the healthcare.  
Husband with cancer. Kids at home.  
 _Everyone had someone they had to come home for._  
Al-Farouk was the quiet type. Stern. A lot like Reyes could get sometimes…now it was all the time.  
"You hear about that Talon sniper?" Singh asked at Al-Farouk who was busy sharpening his knife.  
"Nah, I ain't worried neither. We got our own class sniper- right Captain Amari?" Farouk asked with a grin.  
Jack looked over towards Ana who arched an eyebrow under her blue beret she used to hide her silver bangs that still managed to fall at her temples to her jaw.  
"Don't be a kiss ass, Farouk. It doesn't flatter you." She could kill with a smile, and the others had a good laugh from that.  
"They say she moves like lightning. The accuracy of a God." Singh sounded more scared that excited.  
"Like to see her get me, right," Bayless laughed, "I'll find the guy myself, give 'em a knock."  
"Who says it's a _he_?" Kimiko asked, breaking Bayless' bragging streak.  
"Jesus." Singh stared out the window. Beneath them was a solid city block of dilapidated buildings, still in ruin from the Omnic wars. This place flip-flopped between a warzone for local gangs, and a 'work in progress' for the Somalian Government to brag about cleaning up and modernizing before the turn of the century.  
"We're setting down on the blue building just down there," Jack spoke, "from there Ana will set up in the apartment complex just across from the derelict hospital these people are held up in. She'll fire first, then cover us while we storm."  
The team nodded in weak approval.  
This was one of their earlier missions. Just a few each under their collective belt.  
 _Hopefully not their last._

* * *

"In position, Jack." Ana's voice was in Morrison's ear as he, Mirembe, and Singh were huddled by the hospital's unguarded side door.

"Got it. So are we. Al-Farouk and Bayless are on the second story awning, taking them from above. Be ready."  
Ana's silence acted as confirmation.  
"Ready, Commander?" Bayless chimed in from his comm.  
"Affirmative. Got a count?"  
"8 that we can see. It's weird, they're all just standing there, sir. Like they're waiting for something." Bayless had a good intuition…and frankly, it worried him.  
"I don't like this." Morrison muttered.  
"Neither do I, Jack. Talon's never as they appear." Ana was in agreement.  
"I'm going in sir, surprise is the best tactic!" The sound of Farouk's pulse rifle unlocking from 'safety' was audible. Then, the smashing of glass.  
"Damn!" Singh hissed, "Are they going in?"  
"Yep. _We're all soldiers now._ " Morrison clicked his eye-piece into tactical mode, and the gunfire from inside was his signal.  
Bursting through the doors, Jack volleyed over the welcome counter and hip-fired fatal shots at two of the Talon operatives hidden in cover facing away from him- the skull designed helmets shattered into a mess at the overturned table they were hiding behind. Singh was right behind him providing cover fire and soon Mirembe was at his side.  
One of the Talon shooters was smart. He grabbed a hostage and jammed the barrel of his side-arm into the old man's neck. No one moved.  
No one spoke.  
"Hey, asshole!" The Talon taker turned around to a bullet frying through his skull, sending his corpse rag dolling backwards. Farouk stood, satisfied.  
"That was too easy!" Bayless laughed as he and the others began to tend to the hostages, un-cuffing them and helping them up.  
 _Yeah…_ Morrison thought, _…it was.  
_ "You okay up there, Ana?" Jack asked into his piece.  
"I'm fine, Jack. No one's moving. Not even the birds."  
 _Ominous._ _  
_Morrison rushed his team and they began to escort the now free men and women from the entrance of the hospital into the setting sun of the Somalian heated sky. Mirembe was giving them quick health-checks and Singh was at their sides, eyes to the windows of the buildings looming around them. The only thing Morrison could think of was that he hoped- no- _prayed_ Bayless was wrong.  
"Sir?"  
 _Speak of the devil._  
"What is it, Bayless?" Jack asked, turning to face the young man, wiping the sweat from his brow.  
"I just think-"  
The air shattered around them, and the boy's chest piece blew apart like it had been made from nothing but foam and scraps of paper. In that instant, time had slowed so much that Morrison could see the light extinguish from his eyes as his body was falling to the cracked cement below.  
"Sniper! Get down!" Singh screamed.  
Around them were waist high walls where flowers had long since died, and ahead was the street. There was no sense of cover.  
 _No sense._ _  
_"Damn! Jack, move! I've got this one." Ana shouted over the mic. The sniper didn't fire again until Morrison heard Ana's own rifle sound off. Just down the street, the window on the 4th story of a tall, faded-pink building exploded in a rain of glass.  
"He's fast!" Ana reacted after her missed shot.  
There was a silence in the air. A lingering one that seemed like the heat itself had exhausted all of the sound as the two snipers tried to gauge each other's locations, and the only acoustic in the dry air were the whimpers of the rescued hostages and the faint breathing of those left alive on Morrison's strike team.  
The man looked, his back up against the cracked concrete of the flower bed he was using as cover as Mirembe stared vacantly towards Bayless' body with his bright eyes slowly losing their light as they faced towards the tea-colored sky above. He was dead, there was no doubt about that.  
 _No coming back from that._ _No coming back from that.  
_ "Sir?!" Al-Farouk urged, awaiting the commands for their next move while the eye of the sniper duel was over them. Morrison raised his gloved hand to the boy.  
 _Stand down. Wait.  
_ "We have to go!" one of the scientists' voice cracked, "I have to get out of here!".  
A man rose to his dirty shoes and bolted from the small hug of trough-like flower beds and darted into the street towards a ruined market stand just across from them at the corner of the road and the sniper's shot sounded instantly, ripping the man's foot from the bottom of his leg in a disgusting show of gore.  
 _His scream was the first._ Al-Farouk cursed at himself and began to wildly fire, breaking formation to go and rescue the man but Morrison knew that such a novice tactic wouldn't dissuade whatever sharp-shooter was targeting them. Jack clenched his jaw in wait as the soldier came to the rescue of the injured hostage, grabbing him by the shirt collar and dragging him with a mighty display of strength across the street to the same stand he was racing towards.  
Another shot- but this time it was Ana.  
"HELIO-2 coming in hot, I repeat, HELIO-2 headed to LZ. Get your asses over here!" The pilot's voice in his ear almost made Morrison jump from his skin as he sprinted with the rest of them to the cover of the buildings across the road.  
"Stay here!" Al-Farouk shouted at the man as he headed back towards Jack and slapped his shoulder in the middle of the street. He was going back to get Bayless.  
Mirembe, Singh, and Kimiko formed around the hostages in a protective circle to move them, they were all firing towards the same pink building the sniper was in, with no return fire.  
"Come on! Form up on me!" Jack screamed as he hugged the street corner, clicking the Helix rockets on his rifle for activation.  
"Ana, where are you? Do you have a visual?" He asked, his heart racing.  
"I'm on the rooftops above you Jack, but I don't see-"  
Another thunderous crack and a blood curdling scream to echo it.

Jack looked back to see Al-Farouk's skull turn into a piñata of dazzling crimson and pinks _.  
_ Kimiko and the other two pushed the hostages towards him and dove at his feet to watch Farouk collapse 10 feet away from them over the body of their other fallen brother.  
Jack popped from cover and fired the trinity of rockets towards the pink building which responded with a triumphant explosion of debris and shards of glass.  
"That bastard! Let me get him sir, let me get him!" Singh ran at Morrison who had to stiff-arm him back onto his ass.  
"I'm not losing anyone else, do you hear me?!" Jack yelled, his insides felt like they were playing on a trampoline, and his jaw clenched from the sick feeling.  
"Ana?"  
 _No response_.  
"Ana?!" Morrison screamed as they made their way down the street- the LZ was only 2 blocks away in an abandoned market square. They had to make it fast.  
The man who had been shot in the foot was straggling, and Jack couldn't afford that. He tossed Kimiko his rifle and hoisted the bloody man into his arms to carry, constantly looking above and around him. Keeping his ears as open as he could.  
"I've got you now!" Ana shouted over the mic and her sniper fired just 20 or 30 feet in the air behind them.  
"I got him Jack, headshot. He's…."  
Ana's voice fell silent and Morrison could hear her gasp for air. A sound like she'd been frightened out of her own body.  
Then another round popped off.  
Then Ana Amari's scream was the only thing Jack Morrison heard.


	33. Fading Life

**The rooftops above.**

"I've got you now!" Ana hissed into her mic. Jack would hear her, and that was good. Her team needed that, they needed to know who was about to fire…and it was always going to be Ana Amari.  
 _I'm always going to protect my team. My family._  
Ana took a deep breath and brushed her finger at the trigger of her _Kinamura_ sniper rifle. Time slowed as she lined up the shot at the Talon operative who's sniper rifle was trained on the rooftop next to her. In the middle of all the commotion, Ana had jumped to the catwalk beneath her and made her way up the back to the vantage point she held now, tucked neatly behind a heap of cardboard boxes and garbage discarded casually beneath a torn apart billboard advertising some Roman vacation spot.  
 _980 meters per second.  
Target is 30-35 meters away, now peaking around the corner of a ruined office building.  
This is the last time they'll ever take a life.  
_Ana squeezed the trigger as gently as one would caress a small animal, with the same care and delicacy. The rifle kicked back into her shoulder with the sound of two god's clashing in the heaven's above her- hear ears split and rang and for a moment she was deaf as she watched through the cope as the enemy sniper's head jolted to the side so violently their neck could have broken…  
 _She missed._  
Ana's gut plummeted and her jaw dropped as the sniper's helmet fell apart into a mess of metal and plastic framing a face that she knew couldn't be real.  
It was Amélie Lacroix…but it wasn't. The timid auburn eyes were now replaced by beady round eyes as yellow and sick as a plague. Her skin was no longer pale and porcelain but corpse-like and blue as a morning sky.  
 _No.  
No that can't be. Amélie…  
_In an instant, Ana's hesitation was taken advantage of as Amélie dropped to her stomach and fired.  
Ana could only see red and white, then nothing at all out of her right eye as her scope exploded into her face only for her to recoil with a shriek that could be heard the world over.  
The world went dark. Quiet. The heat blanketed her to send her off to her final slumber, but she twitched from side to side violently, the only thing she could do was moan and choke and wait to die. Her ear-piece on the ground beside her spoke to her through broken static.  
She failed.  
 _She failed._  
 _She failed everyone_. Ana's palm pressed into the gore where her right eye had been taken, and her teeth dug into her lips to taste copper. Her only vision now was the setting sun in the sky, and soon she lost that too as she fell away into darkness.  
Darkness she couldn't come back from. Jack. Fareeha.  
Gabriel. In the distance from the blackness, she heard the drop ship taking off.  
She could hear Jack's pain even from her Hell, and that voice was the only thing Ana Amari heard.  
She felt a squeeze at her hand. Fareeha waking her up in the night from a nightmare.  
She felt a kiss at her cheek. Jack waking her up to make love to her.  
She felt a finger brush the bangs from her eyes. Gabriel telling her that he was in love with her.


	34. The Ride into the Sunset

**Overwatch H.Q.  
One month after Ana Amari is pronounced KIA/MIA.**

"This is what you want, Gabriel?" Jesse McCree's drive was leaving him with the crushing realization that everything he had worked so hard to change about himself, about his nature, was for nothing.

"It's what's necessary, Jesse. If you can't see that…if you're against that…you're against the future of Blackwatch. Against _me._ "  
Gabriel Reyes, the man who had helped to train him and to hone his skills as an agent and as a man, stood just inches away from him with his back to a room with several classes of high grade explosives and weaponry…the 'Overwatch' pendant scratched out to the base and replaced with the Blackwatch pendant.  
"You want to go to war with your brothers here? Your family?" McCree wanted to step back from the man's towering frame but that would be a show of weakness. Weakness could get him killed.  
His peacemaker was snug in the holster at his hip, and his hand was trained and ready to snatch it.  
"Ever since _Ana_ , Jack is unfit to lead. He always was _weak_ , but now he is _broken._ " Reyes growled.  
"Topple Overwatch and put Blackwatch on top huh. Self-cannibalization," McCree chewed the words in his mouth like they had texture.  
"Big words for you, you _damn ingrate_."  
"I'm not letting you do this. I'm taking this to Jack- to the U.N."  
"Do it, and it'll be the last thing you ever do on this Earth, Jesse. I promise you that."  
Reyes' eyes darkened with the threat. This wasn't the man he had known…or was it?  
Maybe this was always Gabriel…but McCree didn't want to believe that.

"And what's Doctor Zeigler think of this, Gabriel? What would Ana think?" McCree stepped towards him, he could feel Reyes' breath at bridge of his nose.  
"Why would I give a damn what Ana thinks? The thoughts of a dead woman don't affect me-" Gabriel brought a gloved hand to Jesse's neck, his thumb directly in the center. The gunslinger's jaw clenched, and his own hand fingered the grip of his revolver.  
"The dead woman huh. And your _daughter_?" Jesse hissed the final word like a death blow.  
Gabriel moved faster than McCree was ready for- with a single motion he clenched down on the cowboy's neck and lifted him into the air, bringing him down in a choke-slam to the hard cement floor beneath them. Jesse ripped the revolver from its holster, but Reyes had caught that move too.  
With a single blur of his hand, Reyes had slapped the gun with a sharp crack from McCree's mechanical limb and brandished his own knife, bringing it deep into Jesse's metallic palm with a painful spark and burst of crackling wires. His artificial nerves cried in anguish and all Jesse could do was fight to keep the air in his lungs from the man's fearsome grip around him.  
"This is your last chance Jesse. I really don't want to kill you and deny that _precious little China-doll_ a husband."  
Their stare-down was almost endless before Reyes relieved the pressure at McCree's throat and took a step back with a satisfied grin.  
Jesse lifted himself up on his free hand and tried to move his mechanical fingers- they responded weakly, which at least meant they weren't completely fried.  
Gabriel made his way by Jesse's feet and scooped up his revolver, spinning the chamber and shaking the gun to empty the bullets he'd loaded into them before tossing the gun to McCree's chest with a painful beat.  
"You're relieved of your duty here, Jesse. Get the hell out of my sight."  
McCree bit his tongue and helped himself to his feet, holstering his gun in anger and defeat.  
"Someone's gonna do you in one of these days Reyes. And I hope to God I'm on the giving end of that bullet that does it." Jesse spat to the ground at Gabriel's boot.  
The man's cold eyes only kept staring straight ahead, like McCree wasn't even there.

* * *

Jesse made it to his dorm room, but there was nothing he needed to take. Nothing he needed to take.

Hell, he hardly slept there anyway. The cowboy opened his dusty wardrobe to hangers full of matching black shirts, jeans, button-ups. Nothing he desperately needed especially after his room would probably be torched by the hellions Gabriel controlled from Blackwatch. Jesse opened his chest of drawers and picked through sleep shirts and tank-tops, boxers and socks. Nothing he kept meant much to him…nothing ever had.  
He'd always been a drifter. Maybe he'd go back to Texas. See how his mama's farm was doing…if it was even still there. A hidden element danced at the corner of his eyes and he made his way to the window looking down into the courtyard of the dorm hall- the same place that a lifetime ago he'd built snowmen with Mei-Ling on Christmas. Jesse put his hand to glass to feel the cold, the cold he felt on that day. Closing his eyes, he felt transported if only for a moment.  
 _Stay away from her, Jesse. That's not what we do in Blackwatch. She's a good girl._ Angela told him that once. Reyes told him that several times…and Jesse realized he'd not be here when Mei returned.  
He let out a soft laugh at the thought of showing up there in Antarctica. Rolling through the snow and seeing her there, her cheeks rosy and her eyes lighting up at the sight.  
 _Hey there lil' lady. I think I done got lost and went to Heaven…it's all white, and you're here.  
_ Jesse noticed at his feet a piece of red and orange fabric peeking out from a pile of duffel bags and shirts. He bent over and retrieved an ornately designed poncho.  
 _"Well I'll be damned,"_ he whispered to himself, _"I ain't seen you since Dorado."_  
His things packed in one bag, McCree draped the poncho around his torso, leaning lower over his arm to hide his busted hand. Under better circumstances he'd visit the funny little Swede…but not now. He needed to see Morrison.  
That was a tall order these days.

* * *

In the weeks that passed since the Somalia mission, Strike Commander Morrison found his only solace in the bottle and his only joy in his own loneliness. The girl, Fareeha, didn't really understand what was happening and the last Jesse saw of her, she'd gone to Egypt under special care of Amari's family.  
Reyes was right in some aspect...Jack Morrison had become unfit to lead much of anything, and the world noticed. There just wouldn't be much for Blackwatch to take over when they made their move.

McCree did find Morrison, in the same place he always was, on the upstairs balcony. Staring out to the mountains.  
Jack Morrison was young, handsome, with a full head of blonde hair and a smile always about him when he and Reyes first ran into a young gangbanger Jesse McCree.  
Now, the soldier was older. Bitter. His greying hair was clinging to the top of a weathered skull.  
"Jesse." The man whispered, and the air carrying his words as smoke from his lips.  
"How'd you gander it was me?" Jesse asked, walking to the man turned away from him.  
"You're loud when you walk," Morrison slowly adjusted himself to face McCree. His eyes were red and heavy, and a bottle of whiskey sat at the table as the soldier's only company.  
"I need to tell you somethin' Jack…" McCree pulled out his cigar- a nervous tick.  
"If you're quitting, go ahead Jesse. There's no world left for heroes anymore. _Not here at least_."  
"I am leavin', Jack. But before I go, I need you to know that Blackwatch ain't what you think. Reyes, he's arming them to fight _against_ Overwatch. To take you down and to put themselves at the front."  
That got the old warrior's attention. Morrison tilted forward, his hardened look softening if for a moment.  
"I'll deal with him when the time comes Jesse." Morrison whispered.  
"I hope so, Jack." McCree puffed at his cigar, watching the smoke blend with his own breath.  
"We used to be friends, you know. A long time ago. When the world still wanted us, and we wanted each other." Morrison reclined back again, taking another drink.  
The cowboy nodded, watching what could have been a tear freeze at the corner of the old man's eye before it dissipated into the cold.  
With nothing else to say, Jesse stood up and tipped his hat to the man he'd likely never see again, and before he made it to the door, Morrison cleared his throat.  
"Jesse. Go find Mei-ling. Don't wait on love. Don't let that slip from you again."  
The cowboy didn't dare look back, the sound of breaking was what he heard when Jack spoke to him, and he couldn't bear to see that reflected on his face.  
"I know, Jack."  
McCree let his cigar drop to the ground to burn out into the cold of the coming night, and with that he was a drifter once again.


	35. Adawe's Last Decision

**Numbani, Africa.  
Present.**

Gabrielle Adawe was dying.  
She'd lived long enough, she figured. The woman clutched her blanket to her breast as she sat in the recliner in her room, watching the same news cycle she had been all day.  
There was an Overwatch museum opening in New York City, the ATLAS News anchor said. The same anchor she'd been watching all week, all month.  
All year. Since the diagnosis.  
She had tried to reach out to Angela Zeigler, to anyone really just to talk. To apologize.  
Back to the Museum on the news, she cried.  
She cried at the display dedicated to Jack Morrison through the broadcast cameras as a woman anchor said words she didn't really hear.  
 _If I'd known then…If I wasn't so afraid…If I'd known what those bureaucratic bastards were doing with Talon and Blackwatch. Hell, not even Reyes knew. That whole time he was just their pawn, their weapon. If I'd known they were going to blow the whole damn thing up to bury it all.  
_ Adawe hated herself for the things she was afraid of. She was afraid of death, then. Not now.  
Dying then to protect Overwatch from the future would have been heroic.  
Dying alone in her Government approved home in the suburbs of Numbani wasn't heroic…it was failure.  
 _All of it was to form Talon. That whole time…all of it was for Talon. To control the world. Control the Omnics.  
_

Thinking quickly, recklessly, Adawe reached for her personal device and logged into the digital dust of her old U.N. files still stored away in a private dropbox, off the grid and untraceable, to be purged in the event of her death.  
She knew one location the right people would find it.  
The right person- the only person.  
Adawe patched herself into the Gibraltar network, and sent her greatest weapon.  
"You'll know what to do, big guy." She whispered.  
The news interrupted her smile, as people were being interviewed about the museum still.  
"We think it's great," One man told the anchor, "so maybe I can show my kids that there used to be heroes. There used to be uh, people to look up to. We don't have that anymore."  
 _No. We don't._ Adawe thought.  
 _But we will soon. We will again._


	36. The Two Soldiers' Dance

**Overwatch H.Q.  
The Day of the Fall.**

Jack Morrison's hand fell to Angela's cheek. She had kissed him, and he had kissed her back.  
Not out of want, but of necessity. A need. A need to fill a gap that was left within him.  
"I just don't know what to do Jack. Nothing makes sense anymore. None of it does…"  
"I'm sorry about Gabriel. I'm sorry it's all come to this, but you had to know."  
"That's the thing Jack…I knew. I always knew." Angela's tone changed. Her gaze did too.  
"What do you mean?" Morrison stepped away from her.  
"I encouraged it…" She trailed off, "I encouraged him to form Blackwatch against you. I loved you, and so did he. But you trashed all that for _Ana_. You took his child from him."  
The need to fill his emotional vacancy with lust turned to anger. Morrison squeezed his fist and turned his back to the doctor, who's judgmental eyes were now all he could see.  
"Leave her- Leave _Fareeha_ out of this." Morrison commanded.  
"It's true, Jack. Okay? I know you don't want to hear it. I'm sorry. But I never thought it would end up like this. I _told_ Gabriel he could be better than you, that he could _do_ better than you; but this isn't what we are. This isn't why we came here all those years ago-" Zeigler's hand was at Morrison's back, cold to the touch even through his jacket.  
"What _are_ you?" Jack asked, facing her now. "Who's _side_ are you on?"  
"I just want you both back. I want us to be a family again. I can save us, Jack. I can save Overwatch. The power they've given me, the things I can do now…" Zeigler was losing it. The good Doctor Jack Morrison loved once was replaced by a woman who's ambition exceeded her sanity.  
"You want to save _us_? Save _this_?" Morrison extended his arms, his anger growing, "You can start by talking Gabriel down. And then you two can go to Hell."  
"I know you lost someone Jack. I know how much losing Ana meant to you," Zeigler spoke, "I can bring her back. I can do that and so much more now."  
Morrison's jaw tightened.  
"No you can't. No one can play God like that." Jack wanted to believe her _. He wanted to_ , but he knew better.  
Zeigler stepped towards him again, and grabbed the scruff of his squared features, her cold lips touching his.  
"I'm sorry." She whispered, looking into Jack's eyes. Suddenly, her head tilted and her gaze was now to the wall behind him as the door to the Strike Command office flew open, banking hard off the frame.  
Before Jack could even turn around, Mercy had lunged away from him knocking herself against the rich desk stacked high with folders and gadgets.  
"Gabriel! No!" Zeigler screamed  
Jack knew what this was, but it was too late.  
As Jack turned, a boot impacted at the outside of his leg, knocking him off balance and sending him toppling against a steel file cabinet which dented upon impact.  
Morrison tried to get up, and Gabriel's fist met with the top of his skull sending his vision red and black for an instant.  
"Reyes, stop! This isn't what it-" Jack kicked off the ground and tackled the man head first to the floor, "-This isn't what it looks like!"  
Gabriel's eyes were wild, his lust for blood was palpable as he spared not a word, and balled his fist to connect it cleanly into Jack's cheek with a crunch as he soldier could feel two loose teeth and the taste of pennies in his mouth. Next thing, Reyes kicked Jack off of him with ease.

"I was going to make this easy on you, Jack. I was going to let you step down."  
Gabriel growled as he continued to strike, Jack dancing with him to avoid the blows.  
"It was _always_ about you!" The man roared finally grabbing Morrison by the collar of his jacket and thrusting him out of the office, into the hallway where Jack's back slammed against the outer wall.  
"Gabriel! Damn it! Enough!" Morrison cocked back his fist and shot it to Reyes as it met the man's gut where the air visibly escaped from his dark lips.  
They exchanged blows like rival gusts of wind in a tornado, each more ferocious and targeted than the next. Their dance down the hall was a precise arrangement and a devastating waltz where instead of hands meeting in unison, their knuckles would connect with cracks. The government juices in their blood countering each other as brothers in arms turned to war fighters with vendettas.  
At the edge of the stairs, Angela Zeigler ran screaming for onlookers to help, but no one did.  
No one dared.  
"It was always you, Jack!" Reyes' words came from blood and the sinew of teeth forming a chunky mess of velvet down his chin.  
"Gabriel, Please. Please," Jack Morrison begged him as his fingers clenched the man's throat.  
Reyes, with fox like agility, swept Jack's leg with his own boot and sent the soldier flopping to the ground with an impact to splinter the floor, and soon Gabriel had cleared the railing and darted from the fight if only for a moment.  
"Jack, please, stop this. Stop this!" Angela shouted, on hands and knees.  
Morrison wanted to lie to her and say that he would…but he couldn't do that.  
"Angela, I need you to do me one last favor." Jack got up, using Zeigler's shoulders for support.  
"I need you to clear the building. I need you to sound an Omega Protocol."  
"Jack…" Angela whispered. She knew what that meant.  
A Code Omega would only be activated in the event of a catastrophic emergency.  
Jack Morrison knew the only way then, to stop Reyes, was to kill him.


	37. The Absolution

**The Fall.**

Soon the caution lights wailed in tandem with the siren's sound through the speakers across the grounds. Jack Morrison put one foot before the other as he walked down the grand staircase into the lobby while his hands worked to slide the magazine into his pulse-rifle with a bitter-sweet click of completion.  
Down the halls, as if an eternity away, he heard yells and calls of the Overwatch agents running from their rooms out the emergency exits and catwalks that clung like spider webs to the back and sides of the center building.  
The overhead lights had been cut as the building's Omega Protocol but the power on a back-up generator, causing Jack's world around him to be painted by sporadic flashes of white, orange, and red.  
 _"Please evacuate using the emergency exit systems. This is not a drill. Please eva…."  
_ The monotone system spoke it's dialogue for the first time ever. In the close to three decades, Overwatch had never experienced an attack at home…until now.  
Soon Morrison was standing on the marble of the Overwatch emblem in the entrance-way. Even with all the commotion, all he could focus on was the horrible silence in-between the alarm. The lull that would soon be filled by gunfire. A crack of sound, and the flooring kicked up inches from his heels in a flurry of shrapnel from one of Reyes' twin shotguns. Jack stumbled forward and spun, squeezing the trigger as the frantic lights around him blended into the fires from his muzzle, but Reyes was too fast for that. The soldier tumbled from the line of fire and came up on one knee- _CRACK. CRACK.-_ firing one, then the other as Jack felt the heat and death pass by him so closely he could taste the powder.  
 _5 shots in one, 4 in the other_ Morrison made a mental note as he squeezed off another burst, using the momentum to fly back into the connecting hallway.  
"You keep missing me, Jack! Are you too weak to take a good shot? Or too old?" Gabriel questioned as he stood In the assault of lights over the now broken emblem at his feet where Morrison once stood.  
Morrison said nothing, but took a knee and aimed down the sights.  
"Please, Reyes. Please don't do this. There's another way." Jack knew he was wasting his words.  
Gabriel popped his neck to the left, then to the right, and slowly began to walk onward to him. Jack's finger rested on the trigger like he was caressing a lover. He could see the darkness around his friend's eyes twitching with the anticipation of the shot. The kill. The rush.  
Morrison fired, Reyes side-stepped. Fired again, no avail. Soon Gabriel was on him, feet from him, and the canons at his hands sounded off like artillery. Jack was quick, like a good soldier should be, and had managed to avoid the first burst which shattered and tore apart the wall and window behind him- but the other one left a mark. Jack's right arm was bare and bloodied now after the buckshot ripped through his old blue coat- he didn't want to give Reyes the satisfaction of a painful scream.  
Morrison let go of his rifle long enough to grip the butt of it and jabbed his arms outwards into a biff that caught Reyes' at the jaw, and now his cream and blue pulse rifle found itself splattered with a dark camouflage of blood.  
Gabriel stumbled back and fired again, catching Morrison at the knee. That time, he screamed.

 _4 shots. 2 shots._ Jack counted through the pain. The old warrior jumped backwards and pointed his gun to the ceiling, firing off his trinity rockets to bring the floor above crashing down between himself and the foe.  
Through the smoke and grit, Jack sprinted down the hallway into the grand dining hall, slamming It shut behind him, noticing his own sick trail of bloody boot-prints.  
Morrison trained his gun at the grand doors and continued to retreat back to the towering glass windows at the end of the room where once, they had danced and lived in joy.  
The door then shook from the twin gunshots, blowing a hole through where the beautiful golden handles once were.  
 _3\. 1.  
_ "Come on, then!" Morrison screamed, firing one burst. Then another.  
Silence.  
"Face me!"  
Gabriel sprinted through the doors, like a crazed hound. With each thunderous step, he would grab a chair to throw, and Morrison volleyed across a dining table to the other lane to fire- missing and missing until Gabriel had bounded up onto the table and- _BOOM. BOOM._  
 _2\. Empty_ , Morrison course corrected himself during his dive to avoid the shots and finally popped off the last of his magazine tearing through Reyes' right knee. The man howled through the blood.

He was standing before him now, Morrison stopped limping long enough to stare him in the eye. His breath was heavy, both of theirs was. Two super-soldiers, crimson at their bruised lips. Exhaustion plaguing their muscular frames. Sweat rolling to blend with the red streaks across their faces.  
Gabriel's pooled under the scar beneath his eye, and for a split second he look as if the blood took the form of a streak of tears.  
Morrison, through a pant, dropped his heavy weapon to the ground and unclipped the biotic device from his vest and threw it to the ground between them. The field expanded, a warm golden hue illuminating the lightless hall as the dying sky outside whispered its last sunlight through the windows. The sun couldn't reach them though, not now, no. They were in darkness. In darkness except for the small expanse of light that struggled to heal them both.  
Gabriel looked upon it, and then to Morrison. He held his shotgun out, facing from them, and popped off the last shot as it destroyed an ornate chair just feet away from them. It's fury echoing in the high walls.  
The other shotgun, he gave a knowing look at, and then dropped them both at his feet. Not as a sign of truce or defeat, but as a symbol of their brotherhood.  
They weren't going to shoot each other dead anymore. No. That would be too easy.  
Gabriel stared at his own hands like the weapons they were, and then to the biotic device which flashed weakly with a final sort of gasp.  
Morrison balled a fist and put it into his palm, cracking his joints.  
Loading his own weapons for the battle ahead.  
 _"Come on Jack, you gotta' learn to hit harder than that,"_ A young Reyes had told him at Basic in another life. _"I'm not always gonna' be able to put my ass on the line for you. Didn't they teach you to fight in whatever backwards farm you grew up in?"  
_ Jack would always laugh, always give him a big grin.  
Reyes moved then in a blur, his fist finding Jack's cheek, then his other busting his side and he felt a rib shatter. Gabriel was always the one with the strength, but Morrison…he had speed.

The two danced, then in darkness as the sunlight finally took its own life at the mountains.  
The two danced, fists connecting and exchanging in a waltz that was as romantic as it was deadly. The blood of each now covering the other, and in the darkness their tears met as well. The skin at Gabriel's knuckles was rubbed raw with every blow, and soon his bare skin at his chest was now showing in the cover of the darkness as the two would grab and rip, punch and bleed. Kick and scream.  
Gabriel hit Morrison for every-time he remembered Jack's love for Dr. Zeigler, and for every time he remembered his own passion for Ana. The deceased. The woman Jack had let die….he did let her die, didn't he?  
Morrison felt that rage, that lust, and gave it back in turn. Both men no longer had skin, no longer had pain.  
They were naked in their mutual agony and violence as the pummeling continued until they had both ended their dance at the stage. The stage where, years ago, Morrison had taken Gabriel's promotion from him.  
Gabriel Reyes opened his mouth to speak, and shards of tooth dribbled out.  
"You never loved her." He spoke, his voice hardly his own.  
Morrison didn't ask which one. It didn't matter.  
"Neither did you." Jack replied. The words hurt to say almost as much as they hurt to hear. More painful than the fists. Burying deeper than the bullets had.  
Jack kicked Gabriel at his knee where he'd shot him earlier and the man screamed, collapsing on his back against the wood of the stage beneath them. Morrison was on him now, fingers wrapped at his neck.  
Before he could speak, the ground rumbled violently beneath them. The whole world. The walls cried and soon the chandeliers at the ceiling…then there was no ceiling, and Morrison watched the sky crumble around them as his ears popped from a sound like the universe itself was giving birth to an atom bomb.


	38. The Revival

p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .2in;"strongThe Ruins of Overwatch H.Q. br / br / /strongWhere her home was, there was now a carcass of concrete and structure. Smoke and fire bellowing from pits and wounds that dug into the Earth / The night sky was alive with the light of ruins. br / "Oh no, oh God no!" Zeigler screamed. Her scream so loud it could wake the memories of the / Around her, the crowd of agents gasped and cried. Shouted and held eachother as they ran with Zeigler to the smoldering remnants of a home they would never again see. The death of a dream was looking at them now. br / Angela held her wrist up and double tapped a small pad underneath her palm as the golden wings of her suit activated, and the flew into the air. Across the shattered remains. A graveyard now for the hopes and prayers of the world, and for those unlucky enough to make it out…but all those bodies meant nothing to her in that moment, no. Only two did. br / She held her staff up as the wind kissed the tears at her cheeks, and it hummed with a low glow sensing life. Life in the middle of this fresh Hell. She continued to soar, paying no mind to the screams and wails of agony around her until she found herself where the broken walls of the grand hall swayed in the darkness overlooking a sea of broken glass and chunks of ceiling. br / Zeigler gabbed rocks and wreckage and began to dig, and toss. The Kevlar material of her gloves was soon rubbing away at her finger tips, and the could feel her fingers bleeding but she didn't care. She didn't care until she looked upon Gabriel Reyes and Jack Morrison. br / Finally, she found one. emOnly one. /embr / "No!" She screamed, her voice cracking, "No! Gabriel!" Angela held her fingers under Reyes' / "No! No he's not, he-" Angela was trying to convince / br / "He's not dead. No. emHeroes never die./em" She clutched the staff like a sword and slammed it down onto Reyes' torso, her thumb being scanned with a dull blue light, and soon she opened her free hand to swipe it into the air. With her cries and blood, she let out a primal wail, and soon the staff exploded into a vibrant illumination, and the sun itself was around her now. br / Then another roar. A frightening one. br / Gabriel's eyes shot open, but they weren't his eyes. Angela let out a gasp of terror and recoiled at the sight. The skin at Gabriel's face began to peel away into tissue and sinew, and his eyes disintegrated into a colorless void. His lips curled back as his agonizing shout grew louder. br / The smoke and embers around them in the wreckage seemed to be drawn together over Reyes until soon she couldn't see anything. She would later realize that was a blessing as the sound of bone and organs crunching and contorting was more than enough. br / Soon, through blurred vision, there was nothing but an ugly cloud that burned and danced like the fires of hell. br / Then it was gone. br / Angela fainted in the rubble, her voice lost from her distress. /p 


	39. ATLAS News Archive: The End of an Era

**ATLAS News Archive:  
September 19, 2056.  
** _U.N. Hearings Symbolize End of Love Affair with OVERWATCH_ _ **  
Story by:**_ _Danielle Robin_ _ **  
Photo Credits Courtesy of U.N. Press Committee**_

The world collectively watched, read, and listened in disgust and sadness as the official Inquiry into the destruction of Overwatch's Switzerland-based Headquarters concluded yesterday afternoon as Dr. Angela Zeigler, better known by her codename of _Mercy_ , disclosed the dark secrets of the final days of the once storied organization.  
One thing was certain: the fall of Overwatch was the product of two men's dangerous brotherhood. Dr. Zeigler was quoted as saying:  
 _"After Morrison's promotion to strike commander, his relationship with Reyes changed. The tension became more pronounced as time went on. I tried to mend things. We all did. Sometimes when the closest bonds break, all you can do is pray you stay out of the cross fire."  
_ Following the hearings, an official decree was authorized by the United Nations who officially withdrew any and all support and ties with the organization, and declared the "Petras Act" to be effective immediately which states clearly that no Overwatch agent may seek active duty and that any attempt to recall or assemble any agents would result in prosecution and even, potentially, death. The U.N. went on to call Overwatch a detriment to the survival of our world and the attempt at coexistence with the Omnic population.  
Many of our readers grew up in a world of Overwatch. A world of larger than life heroes and of hope.  
But, it seems on this day, a world with Overwatch is now nothing but a memory.

The history of Overwatch was lucrative, and then controversial one which saw the organization fall into chaos of a rumored rebellion happening from within, lead by a man identified as Gabriel Reyes who was in command of the dark-ops division which came into light years ago known as Blackwatch. Allegations began to make their rounds after several leaked documents and reports seemed to show that the organization was involved in kidnappings, assassinations, and much worse.  
This all seemed to come to a head just last month as the Overwatch H.Q. erupted into a fiery explosion as a result of the two leaders- Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes. The accident claimed 130 lives including Reyes and Morrison.

Any attempts by ATLAS News to contact heroes that were once a part of the organization have been met with a refusal to comment or even go on record, and keeping with our traditions of privacy and integrity we have complied with these wishes.  
For more information, please continue to stay with ATLAS NEWS as we take you into the future, one story at a time.


	40. The Recall

**_Thank you all so much for sticking with this story for so long. It was fun to write, and I hope everyone has enjoyed it. Please feel free to comment and review, I'm always looking forward to hearing what people have to say.  
This is the final chapter in this story, but I have a sneaking suspicion this won't be the final story in this saga...that is, if you want me to continue._**

* * *

 **Israel.  
Present.**

With her flight delayed, Angela had nothing else to do but to continue to nurse her drinks which grew heavier each time she would have them refilled, but it did nothing for her. Her lifeless hands refused to even feel a tinge of sensation from the liquor.  
Everything she had done in her life stared back at her in the reflection of the whiskey.  
The Reaper she had fought earlier- no, _Gabriel_ \- that was still his name, _Gabriel_ told her Jack was still alive, but did it really matter? Did it matter to _her_?  
The man she loved first was now a ghost, and the man she loved next was a monster.  
Is that what her _heart_ did to people? Is that what _love_ did to people?  
The news on the television continued to spit out information and horrific footage of Omnics killed in the streets of London, and humans killed in the snowy tundra of Russia. The white powder on the screen drenched in blood, like a sick and thick syrup as their nation's warriors raged on fighting.  
Angela knew she'd be there soon enough. It was only a matter of time before Putin gave in to the United Nation's requests to help. No country could keep fighting like that and make it out alive.  
No _person_ could, but Angela Zeigler wasn't a person. She was an Angel of Mercy.  
"Was." She whispered, mocking her own thoughts.  
Every once in a while, she would see them talk or say it. Those magical words that no one wanted to hear, but they all needed to hear.  
 _What if Overwatch was still here? Could they help?_  
"No," Angela spoke to herself, "Overwatch can't help. Not anymore. That dream died. Those heroes died."

Then she felt it. In her breast pocket, a small device whirred in excitement to a humble beep. A sound, a feeling deep within her that she thought she would never hear again. Something that startled her to a point of fear and excitement, but above all else it was a feeling of satisfaction and of hope. She reached into her shirt and retrieved the hand-held, battered but functioning, still decorated with the same legendary symbol that had been scratched and nearly faded away from all the decades she held it.  
Always held it. As a good luck charm.  
Her beacon was being hailed. She flipped it open, and staring back at her through the outdated and pixelated screen was the ash-colored face of Winston, his brow raised in excitement as he saw Angela looking back at him. His smile could brighten the entire darkened world.  
"A-Angela? I, I mean," He cleared his throat, "Dr. Zeigler."  
"Winston? Is that you?" She beamed to the point of tears. She hadn't spoken that name in 20 years.  
"Yes. Yes it is. Ang…er, Dr. Zeigler. We need you. The world needs _us_. And we need _you_."  
The woman, the cold woman, felt warmth in her. Felt a second chance. Felt a purpose again.  
"Winston please…you can call me _Mercy_."  
Winston let out a bellowing laugh, one so loud and powerful she could feel the small speaker on the device begin to crack as onlookers raised their eyes.  
" _Mercy._ " Winston repeated.  
 _The dream died._ Angela had said only minutes ago.  
 _Those heroes died._ She said in doubt and in ignorance. In self-defeat.  
"If you'll excuse me, I still have a few people to call. How soon can you get to the Gibraltar Outpost?"  
"I'm already on my way," She whispered holding back her tears, "I'm coming home Winston."  
Those heroes didn't die…no, the world was still full of heroes.  
Because _heroes never die._


End file.
